The Charity Commission has amended its scheme for the Bath Recreation Ground Trust to replace the organisation's local authority-led board with a new independent board of trustees.

The charity has been involved in a dispute that goes back nearly 15 years over the use of the Bath Recreation Ground.

The trustees, Bath and North East Somerset Council, needed to make a decision about two issues that constituted a breach of trust: the building of a leisure centre on part of the land and the grant of a 75-year lease to Bath Rugby Club.

In December 2012 the Commission published a draft scheme, which followed on from a consultation carried out by the Trust in which the Trust proposed to change its objects to include indoor sports and to swap some of its land.

The Commission's draft scheme received 1,868 representations from interested parties – 1,624 in favour and the remaining 244 against.

This opposition meant the sector regulator was obliged to conduct a decision review into the scheme in February this year, led by its Taunton head of operations Neil Robertson.

All those who submitted a response to the original scheme were given the chance to talk to Robertson to clarify their original submission.

The review is now complete, and one of the alterations is that a new independent body of trustees be formed, which is expected to remove the conflict of interests inherent in having the Council leading the board.

Other changes to the scheme

Robertson also made other alterations to the scheme in light of the representations he received.

He recognised the negative impact of the existing lease to the rugby club and its activities on users of the ground and those who live nearby, so updated the scheme to provide that any agreement with the rugby club must include a clause to ensure that the club minimises disruption to local residents and to the users of the charity.

It must also give public notice in accordance with the provisions of s121 Charities Act 2011 – whether or not this would otherwise be required.

Other changes made to the scheme as a result of the representations were:

• Responsibility for the leisure centre will remain with the Council until a satisfactory solution is negotiated with the new trustees.
• The cy-près application of the leisure centre land for indoor recreation is restricted to the life of the current building.
• The lease of the additional land must be excluded from the security offered by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954.
• The temporary stand must be removed for at least three months of the year.
• The trustees can co-opt as many trustees as they consider necessary.
• In recruiting trustees, the trustees must consider whether to advertise the vacancy or use a trustee brokerage service.
• The proposed nominated trustee to be appointed by users of the recreation ground is replaced by a co-opted trustee because no mechanism is in place to nominate such a trustee.
• For meetings at which strategic decisions will be made, the quorum is five.
• Guidance is included on trustee decision-making.

The full updated scheme will be available on the Commission’s website from tomorrow, 13 June.

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