Laindon Community Centre: Conservatives were 'in debt' to charity

A council awarded a 25-year lease on a community centre to a charity without any "transparency", an independent review concluded.

Conservative-run Basildon Council in Essex handed over the keys for the Laindon Community Centre to a newly-formed charity in 2021.

A report was commissioned to look at how the centre was dealt with by current and former administrations.

The council maintained the lease decision was a transparent process.

"Process has not been followed in granting this new lease," said Labour opposition leader Maryam Yaqub, reacting to the report.

"We are at this really big risk of [these] events - that have got us to this place - being repeated again."

The 137-page review, authored by Melvin Kenyon of Kenyon Brabrook Ltd, said that supporters of the centre urged residents in April 2021 to "vote out" Labour and independent councillors.

The Conservatives gained overall control of the district council in the May 2021 elections.

Mr Kenyon said the Tories would "not have been unhappy" about the campaign's direction.

The Conservatives promised to refurbish the centre - a project that has cost more than £2m - and the keys were handed over in the December.

The centre dates back to 1959 and is the council's largest community asset.

"[It is] difficult to conclude anything other than that the new administration and the Save the Laindon Community Centre activists were in each other's debt and that the new arrangements helped settle those debts," wrote Mr Kenyon.

"It does appear to us that there was no proper process or transparency in the awarding of the lease to the new charity."

He said "no effort" was apparently made to establish whether other organisations wanted to run the centre, but that the process was not "somehow corrupt".

The report questioned the experience of the people running the centre, but said the finance manager appeared "very well-qualified".

The Laindon Community Centre charity finance manager, Brian Clark, told BBC Essex: "We had to do an awful lot of work to convince the council that we were in a position where we could run this, not only financially, but safely.

"It was open and transparent and quite a long, drawn-out cycle."

Conservative councillor Craig Rimmer said the lease decision "went through the committee system, there were reports on it and there were debates on it".

"Part of this has to be taken with a pinch of salt," he told BBC Essex.

"We don't have a long line of people queuing down the street wanting to run community centres."

A council spokesman said: "The council has been transparent in matters associated with the awarding of the lease and refurbishment of the centre."

Labour and some independent councillors have written to Essex Police asking the force to investigate.

The force said it would assess whether any criminal offences were committed.

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]