According to Birmingham City Council records, the site on Billesley Lane has been in use as allotments since 1923 but the purchasing of the land by Moseley Golf Club in 1939 has caused huge problems involving a long-standing takeover bid by the Golf Club. The story is a complicated one.
Although the site was purchased by the Golf Club in 1939, it remained in use as allotments through a series of leases, and it wasn’t until 1994, during the lease lasting from 1986 to September 2001, that the Golf Club started having other ideas about what to do with the land.
In 1994 Moseley Golf Club wrote to Birmingham City Council notifying them of their wish to repossess the land for their own use. Unfortunately, the Billesley Lane Allotment Association was not informed of this.
In 1998 Moseley Golf Club put in a planning application for a golf practice area which would cover the entire allotment site. A public petition held at the time received over six hundred votes and the application was refused, not only because of the allotments but also because of conservation issues.
[Sept 2000 Notice to Quit on BCC under Allotments Act; counter notice issued under Landlord and Tenant Act]
The Regeneration Sub-committee of Birmingham City Council was asked to approve a Compulsory Purchase Order which was referred back to three ward councillors who approved and on the 11th September 2001 a petition of 1400 signatures was presented to a full council meeting.
All seemed well until July 2002 when Moseley Golf Club submitted another planning application to reclaim use of 75% of the land. After another petition, this time with four hundred signatures, the application was rejected in September 2002 for the same reasons as before, and also this time including for reasons of archaeology - burnt mounds* were found on the site.
Wragge & Co., solicitors for Moseley Golf Club, revised their compromise and stated that the offer was to stand until fourteen days after the results of the Compulsory Purchase Order. Their proposition was to allow the whole site to be retained until 25th December 2005 and then allocate a quarter of the site (eleven plots) for allotment use until 2018.
The enquiry for the Compulsory Purchase Order was held between the 24th and the 26th September 2002 and was refused on 14th January 2003.
Following this, Birmingham City Council consulted Tom Hill, counsel in London. Based on his advice (the exact details of which are confidential), Birmingham City Council recommend accepting a ‘compromise’ and not attempting a repeat Compulsory Purchase Order.
A Billesley Lane Allotment Association AGM was held on 26th January 2003 to consider the options and on 23rd February an EGM was held for plotholders to seek more information.
A second EGM on 16th March 2003 saw the acceptance of a compromise after being warned by Birmingham City Council that the whole site could be lost. A briefing document at the time stated, ‘while the advice remains that the expectation of a win at a second CPO is not high the recommendation must be to seek a compromise’. All the same, a Judicial Review is made of the CPO enquiry inspector’s ‘seriously flawed decision’ and in September the Billesley Lane Allotment Association is informed by Birmingham City Council that the Judicial Review had been settled by ‘consent’. Despite the fact that the City Council was still paying their and the Golf Club’s costs, the CPO decision is set aside. Birmingham City Council set about organsing new lease arrangements [??]
In December 2005 Cllr. Martin Mullaney used the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to paper relating to Counsel’s advice; this includes an email written 7th March 2003 at the tie of the EGM by the then Cllr. Nott quoting the advice of Tom Hill: ‘I would conclude that there is at least a reasonable prospect that a fresh enquiry might result in a different outcome’.
Moseley Golf Club reclaimed three quarters of the allotment land on 25th December 2005, erected a fence on the new boundary in January 2006 and by the summer of that year, the old allotment site was cleared and a line of mature trees was felled.
A planning application was submitted by the Golf Club on 3rd March 2007. No notification was given to the Allotment Association or the affected Southlands Road residents until the 21st and the notification that was given came from the Friends of the Earth, not from the authorities.
The Planning Application was recommended for refusal at a meeting of the Planning Committee held on the 13th September 2007. The application was refused on the grounds that it conflicts with Para. 3.62 and 3.62A of Birmingham Unitary Development Plan 2005. The proposal was also contrary to PPG17 and the Strategy for Allotment Provision in Birmingham 2001.
Still the battle rages...
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*A burnt mound is a mound of shattered stones and charcoal, normally with an adjacent hearth and trough, showing the remains of a form of fire structure, the exact purpose of which is not known.