No Lawful Basis

By Jeremy Sparkes

Maindy Velodrome from the air. Source: Ant Warland, Save Maindy Velodrome Facebook Group

No lawful basis. Three small words but huge ramifications. 

In a recent reply to a Save Maindy Velodrome campaigner, the Council’s Director for Education and Lifelong Learning admitted the use of the Maindy Park Trust land for school car parking was in breach of trust rules.

In other words, there was no lawful basis for the Council to use the charity’s property as if it was owned by the Council and was part of its own corporate estate.

So, for about five years the charity has been deprived of use of its land for the good of its beneficiaries, the residents of Cardiff, for recreation and leisure.

Worse, though, is the fact that for all the claims by Cardiff Council that they had no idea it was Trust property or that they were the sole trustee, an external expert had flagged the breach in writing to them 3½ years ago.

So why did the Council continue to act in breach so long after they knew about it? Compounding the failure to protect Trust land, and ensure it was used for public benefit.

It is no longer appropriate for the Council to continue as sole trustee when it has so abjectly failed to safeguard the interests of the Trust. We continue to campaign for independent trustees - the gold standard for modern governance - to supplement or replace the Council.

The Council has gained a significant financial advantage for itself (estimated to be around £100,000, to the detriment of the Trust and its charitable purpose). Proper remedy requires an appropriate level of compensation which, precedent suggests, would be around 85% of the financial benefit derived by the Council. Independent trustees would pursue this.

This revelation also has huge ramifications for the Council’s land swap application involving Maindy Park: it needs the statutory regulator (the Charity Commission) to sign off its application. The Commission (now aware of the lack of a lawful basis in relation to the Council’s self-dealing over the Trust), has requested additional information and asked pertinent questions about the Council’s stewardship.

The ongoing absence of relevant detail from the Council has left the Commission with no alternative but to put the land swap application on hold.

There are also wider implications for Cardiff.

Thanks to the debacle over Maindy Park, the Council has been forced to identify other land and assets held in trust. Some of these are unregistered, but the terms of the trust deed must be followed and any conflict of interest the Council has must be managed in a transparent way before any major decisions are made. For example, this applies to the Lodge in Roath Flower Gardens, as Roath Park has a trust deed applying to it.

Our green spaces continue to be at risk where there is no transparency and accountability for decisions made about them.

About the author

Jeremy Sparkes is campaigner with Save Maindy Velodrome and an individual member of the Association of the Beneficiaries of the Covenanted Land at Maindy Park & of the Maindy Park Trust

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