1. Introduction 

1.1   This paper sets out the legal basis for the protection of the T V Harrison Sports Ground as a permanent “sports ground and playing field for the children of the Elementary [primary] Schools of the City of Leeds”. As a consequence the designation of it by the Leeds City Council (LCC) as a development site in its Site Allocation Plan of 2019 is nugatory and the attempts by the Leeds Schools Sports Association (LSSA) the current trustees of the ground, to sell it to the City Council for development are contrary to the deed under which it holds the land as Management Trustees. Also the duty of National Westminster Bank is to uphold the terms of the deed under which it was appointed as Custodian Trustee.

1.2   The definitive Deed is that of 23 November 1929 under which the land was conveyed from the teacher and the official of the Leeds Education Department who, along with the late Tom Vernon Harrison, had raised the money to purchase the land from its private owners the year before. This deed was lodged with the West Riding Land Registry in Wakefield on 9 January 1930 and can be viewed in Volume 4, Page 792, Number 299. The key Leeds City Council document which erroneously states that the land is available for development is the Report of 20 December 2019 from the Director of Resources and Development re Procurement of a Design and Build Contract re Council Housing at Oldfield Lane. 

2. Context

The site has been recorded as in use as a sports ground from the 1850s. Historically it was owned by the Ingham family. In 1928 it became known that the Ingham family intended to sell the site for development. A Leeds head teacher, Tom Vernon Harrison, together with another teacher, Arthur Thornton, and an officer of the Leeds Education Office, Robert Jarman, launched a public appeal to raise the funds to purchase the site to preserve it for the school children of Leeds “in perpetuity”. (See Yorkshire Post, 29 October 1928). The Lord Mayor of the day, Alderman George Ratcliffe, ceremonially handed the deeds to the Chair of the Leeds Elementary Schools Athletics Association, (LESAA) “which confer the franchise of the ground on the school children of Leeds for ever”, (Yorkshire Evening Post, 29 October 1928). With the help of the Yorkshire Evening Post the appeal raised the equivalent today of £140,000 in just four months and the ground was saved. With their past experience in mind, Harrison and his colleagues made sure that covenants were inserted into the provisions of the deeds in order to protect the site from future development. The land was vested in what is now the Leeds Schools’ Sports Association. Being aware that charities could be ephemeral they also appointed the then Westminster Bank (now the Nat West) as “Custodian Trustee” as a further safeguard.

3. Legal provisions re use of the site

The sale of the land from the Ingham family to Harrison and his colleagues was made under a conveyance of 23 October 1928 and no restriction on the use of the land is contained in this conveyance. It was precisely because it was unrestricted that Harrison and his colleagues realised that it was necessary to purchase it, being aware that it was about to be sold to be built on. The Leeds City Council continually relies on this conveyance as giving it the legal right to build on the site. However it is not this conveyance that restricts the use of the site but the conveyance of 23 November 1929 from Messrs Jarman and Thornton (Harrison having died in the meantime) to the Leeds Elementary Schools’ Athletics Association as noted (the predecessor of the LSSA) that is the key legal document. The two surviving owners, following the purpose of the original purchase, made very sure that the land was protected.

Clause 2 of this latter conveyance sets out that:

“The said premises to be set apart and held by the Managing Trustees under their sole control and management for the purpose of providing a playing field and sports ground for the children of the Elementary Schools of the City of Leeds with all profit and suitable buildings and other erections.” 

Clause 4 of the same conveyance sets out the regulations for any sale of the land by the trustees if such a sale:

“is desirable by reason of the said premises having become unsuitable or unnecessary for the purpose aforesaid or for any other reason.” 

This Clause also provides that if the conditions are met notice shall be given to the Westminster Bank, as Custodian Trustee, to sell the premises. It is clear from the visible evidence of current use and the proposed purchase by LUFC, that the premises have in no way “become unsuitable or unnecessary”. 

Clause 5 of this conveyance sets out that the managing Trustees shall apply any monies received from a sale:

“in the purchase of other premises or in the improvement of any premises used or to be used for the purposes set forth herein” or to apply it for the benefit of Elementary schoolchildren.

So, even if the land is sold the proceeds cannot be used for building on it.

Clause 7 of the conveyance states that:

“It is the intention of the parties hereto that the trusts hereby declared shall ensure for the benefit of the pupils at the Elementary Schools of Leeds” 

and further that:

“The said trusts shall ensure for the benefit of the pupils of those same schools by whatever names they may be designated the intention being that the pupils of all the schools of Leeds ..... shall at all times hereafter be entitled to the benefits of the trusts hereby declared.”

It is inconceivable that Harrison and his two colleagues, having gone to the personal risk of agreeing to purchase the site and then succeeding in raising the amount required through public subscription, would not ensure that the future protection of the ground would not be watertight and legally protected. I cannot imagine how the legal provisions for the use of the land set out in 1929 could conceivably be clearer. To try and prevent the City Council embarking on planning applications that would be expensively contested in Court, I put these points to the LCC Chief Executive, Tom Riordan, in e-mails of 21 October 2020 (he replied on 30 October 2020) and 4 November 2020. There was no substantive reply to this second e-mail, merely an acknowledgement. 

4. The Leeds City Council report of 20 December 2019

 Paragraph 4.6.3 

“We have satisfied ourselves on the basis of the documents we have seen that there are no restrictions on the disposal of the site by LSSA. Documentation supplied to us by the solicitor acting for LSSA show that the second larger parcel was purchased by Tom Vernon Harrison, Robert Jarman and Arthur Thornton on the 13th September 1928 for £1,800. The conveyance was said to be free of encumbrances, which indicates that the intention of the vendors that any restriction be placed on the future of the site” 

Comment: Indeed it was ~free of encumbrances” and it was precisely the knowledge that “speculative builders” were intending to build on the site that catalysed Messrs Harrison, Jarman and Thornton to step in and to buy the site with a view to preserving it as a sports ground. 

Paragraph 4.6.4

“We have also been provided with a copy of the abstract of a further conveyance dated 23 November 1929. This is a transfer of the site from Messrs Jarman and Thornton (Mr Harrison having deceased) as the original trustees of the Leeds Elementary Schools Athletic Association (LEEAS) to Westminster Bank Ltd (now Nat West) to hold the land as custodian trustee. This second conveyance specifically gives the Bank the power, on request of the LEEAS trustees to sell the land. Although the LEAAS intended to use the land as sports field there is no restriction on the sale or mortgaging of the land. We have no evidence that the position has changed since 1929.”

Comment: This is simply misleading and inadequate. It omits completely the crucial restrictions and conditions on any sale of the land, as set out in paragraphs 3 above and 5 below. Whether it was deliberate or simply unintentional I know not but if the key paragraphs had been included it is unlikely that the proposal to change the land’s designation in the Site Allocation Plan would have come forward. It may well have been that “the documentation supplied by the solicitor acting for the LSSA” omitted these paragraphs.

Paragraph 4.6.5

“It appears from a cutting from a newspaper from 1928 that the £1,800 used to purchase the second parcel of land was (at least in part) raised through public subscription. There is no evidence that we have seen that suggests that any part of the site was ‘gifted’ to the children of Leeds and there is no obligation for any purchaser to maintain the site for use by the public.”

Comment: This is completely disingenuous. First, there is ample evidence in the local newspapers of the day, and particularly in the Yorkshire Evening Post, (YEP) which was the key vehicle for the appeal and which published frequent lists of donors, that the whole sum was raised by public subscription. In fact more than the purchase price was raised and the surplus was used to buy equipment for the site. The writer of the LCC report could easily have checked by reference to the columns of the YEP from 23rd June 1928 to the 29th October 1928 for the facts. Second, the precise reason for the purchase by the three individuals was to “gift” it to the children of Leeds, and this was explicitly stated by the Lord Mayor of Leeds when passing the deeds to the trustees of the LEESA, (see para 2 above for references). Once again, by accident or design, the LCC report is extremely inadequate and misleading,

5. The role of the National Westminster Bank as Custodian Trustee

I have also had exchanges of e-mails with Robert Phillips of Hugh James Solicitors acting on behalf of the Nat West Bank. Mr Phillips finally agreed in an e-mail to me on 13 January 2021 that on a request made to the bank by the Managing Trustees “in the terms required by the conveyance” that:

“The Bank will consider whether such a future request would result in a breach of covenant.”

Thus, even if the Managing Trustees (ie the LSSA) made a request to sell, the Bank would then itself have to consider independently whether the terms of the conveyance had been adhered to. This would include whether the necessary special meeting of LSSA members convened for the express purpose of considering a sale, with a resolution in favour requiring to be carried by a three-quarters majority, had been held. It is surely clear that, in the light of the terms of the conveyance set out above, the Bank would not be able to agree to the sale for the purposes of housing development.

6. Asset of Community Value

Following two successful High Court cases setting aside the LCC’s refusal to designate the T V Harrison Sports Ground as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) under Chapter 3 of the Localism Act 2011, the Council finally listed the ground as an ACV on 11 April 2022. This recognition brings certain legal safeguards, including the right of the local community – in this case the T V Harrison Sports Ground Association – to purchase the site as and when it is put up for sale. The LCC accepts that being an ACV does affect its plans, for instance it inserted a clause in the contract with LSSA to purchase the ground if it became listed as an ACV, but it does not completely rule out planning permission. It would, however, be bizarre if the LCC having designated the site as an ACV then destroyed it.

7. Leeds Schools’ Sports Association – “Rules of the Association”

7.1 The Rules and Constitution of the LSSA explicitly recognise that the ground cannot be sold. Under the heading ‘“T V Harrison” Sports Ground’ there are just two paragraphs:

38. The Westminster Bank are the Permanent Holding Trustees and the Management Trustees are the Executive of the Leeds Schools’ Sports Association for the times being. 

39. The Trust Deed is so made that in the event of the Leeds Schools’ Sports Association becoming inoperative, the ground reverts to the Leeds Education to be used by them solely for the use of the school-children of the City as a Sports Ground. (Version of 26 January 1962; later amendments do not affect this section.)

In relation to the ground, by its deliberate decision in 2002 to abandon it and to allow it to become overgrown, and then to sell it to the LCC, and quite apart from the covenants, the LSSA could not, under its own constitution, have sold it. The situation has also been very different since 2019 as the local “T V Harrison Sports Ground Association” is in de facto control of the ground and manages it for the benefit of the local community, with events, junior football training and with local football clubs registering with it for regular matches.

7.2 Given the evidence of the covenants and the LSSA constitution, one should be able to rely on the Charity Commission to be an effective statutory regulator of the charity LSSA. Alas, not so. My efforts to get the Charity Commission to fulfil its regulatory role met with excessive delay and it only eventually gave a perverse opinion accepting the as yet unbuilt proposed Thorpe Park artificial pitches, six miles away on the opposite side of Leeds, as an acceptable substitute for the T V Harrison ground. 

7. Conclusion

The changed allocation of the site in 2019 from “N6 Green Space” to housing under the LSS Site Allocation Plan (SAP) came before the local community campaign group had made full representations to the LCC setting out the legal position under the conveyance of 23 November 1929. Now that the covenants have been made clear it is up to the LCC to propose the withdrawal of the site from the SAP. While it exists in the SAP as allocated for housing development it lays the ground open to futile planning applications and theoretically greatly exaggerates its valuation. In this context it is important to note the LCC-owned portion of the land would have to be appropriated for planning purposes under Section 122 of the Local Government Act 1972 before it can be developed. This parcel of land also has restrictive covenants regarding its use. 

Reverting the allocation of the sports ground land to public open space is important for the future purchase and thus the significant improvement of the ground as a multi-sport facility, including a community centre with changing and shower facilities and accommodation for indoor sports and community activities. 

Michael Meadowcroft

1st February 2023

Waterloo Lodge, 72 Waterloo Lane

Bramley, Leeds LS13 2JF

e-mail: Michael@beemeadowcroft.uk

telephone: (0113) 257 6232

Mobile : 0781 541 8597