Highbury Works Cricket Club: The stalemate that’s left this Yorkshire cricket pitch unused since incredible Ashes summer

It was once home to Highbury Works Cricket Club, formed in 1928 for workers at the neighbouring tannery and their families. Locally, it had a reputation for being a batter-friendly ground – the tight dimensions of the pitch meant boundaries flowed easily. But the 2005 Ashes series – perhaps England’s greatest cricketing triumph – was still one summer away when cricket was last played here, as the club folded.

In the decade after, all attempts to find new tenants and bring it back into public use effectively went for a duck. At one end of the site now lies a tired empty shell of a former clubhouse, while the grass once perused by fielders is grim and overgrown.

On one side of an increasingly bitter stand-off over the site are frustrated members of the community, who want the land restored as a sports facility for local people. They say a long-standing legal agreement dictates this should be the ground’s fate.

On the other side is the landowner Ed Arvley, who bought the site for a provisional £1 in 2016 from a developer, albeit with extra payments due later if certain conditions were triggered. The developer themselves had previously been in talks with the community about selling it to them if they could form a charitable trust.

Now, Mr Arvley is appealing against Leeds City Council’s refusal to scrap a clause in a Section 106 covenant attached to the land. It’s this that lies at the heart of the dispute. The clause in question dictates the “cricket pitch” is not permitted to be “used other than as a cricket pitch”.

The landowner’s previous planning application, to build a dog daycare centre on the site, was also rejected by the council following an outcry from neighbours. For his part, Mr Arvley, who still wants to develop the land in some capacity, but not for sport, argues that the S106 clause is contradictory.

He says he’s under no obligation to do “anything” with the land or maintain it for public use and that he’s even grazed horses on it without punishment, despite the council’s insistence it must only be used for cricket.

“The council has been unable to explain that (issue) in any detail and with any clarity,” Mr Arvley told an appeal hearing at Leeds’ Civic Hall on Tuesday (Jan 10). “I don’t see how those two things go hand in hand.”

Mr Arvley also disputes the council’s definition of the “cricket pitch” referred to in the clause, which he says wrongly includes the clubhouse and car park.

“To define the whole land as a pitch is nonsensical,” he told the government planning inspector chairing the hearing. “The level of ambiguity in the contract is just not fit for purpose and renders it unenforceable. An unenforceable clause is no use whatsoever.”

The council admits the wording of the covenant, which was signed in 1997, is ambiguous and “restrictive” in its nature.

“The drafting of the clause leaves a lot to be desired,” planning officer Glen Allen told the same hearing. “The council’s been very open and honest about that. It was there to protect the interests of the incumbent cricket club.”

When refusing Mr Arvley’s application to ditch the clause last year the council admitted the land was “not suitable for match quality cricket”, but added, “There is still a demand for land for junior cricket and/or practice of the sport which could be undertaken at the site if it were made available.”

The authority added, however, that it would consider allowing other sporting activities to take place on the land, if an application to change the wording of the clause was made. Members of the Meanwood Valley Partnership are worried about the site’s future if the appeal is successful and the clause is removed. They’ve linked the rundown state of the property to anti-social behaviour and police callouts to the site.

Last August, the council apologised after being criticised by the Local Government Ombudsman for failing to progress enforcement action over the condition of the site in 2019. The Ombudsman’s report described the land as “untidy” and the clubhouse “dilapidated”.

Janet Matthews, from the Meanwood Valley Partnership, told the hearing that there is public support for the site to be used by the community again and recalled how it had once been used for sports days by a local primary school.

“The application to vary the agreement threatens the ability of the community to benefit from the Section 106,” she told the inspector. “There’s a recognised demand for cricket pitches, especially for junior cricket teams.”

Local campaigner Julian Oxley was involved in the negotiations when the community wanted to take ownership of the land in the mid-2010s. He told the hearing “energy spent objecting” Mr Arvley’s “inappropriate planning applications and appeals could have been better spent” on regenerating Highbury Works.

He said if the landowner wins the case, “There will be no compensation for the local schools, social enterprises, church groups and sports teams who expressed interest in using Highbury before we were denied the opportunity of offering it to them.”

Mr Arvley, however, argues that it’s a private space and he’s under no obligation to open it to public access. He also accuses the Meanwood Valley Partnership and other campaigners of causing the stalemate by “shouting and screaming and refusing to look at any option other than a cricket pitch”. The Partnership and campaigners claim in turn that he’s failed to properly engage with them.

“My intention is to continue to engage with relevant agencies and relevant people who are open to discussion about what can be done to provide public and community benefit,” was Mr Arvley’s response to that suggestion at the hearing. “Those conversations, if done meaningfully, and with proper engagement with people, then I’m pretty sure we can provide a proper benefit that the community will use and enjoy.”

But he added emphatically: “While I own the land it’s not going to be a cricket pitch. It’s not going to be used for public sports. There’s no obligation on me to do so.”

The Planning Inspector is expected to deliver his judgement on the Mr Arvley’s appeal next month. Whether or not it breaks a deadlock over the land that’s now two decades long remains to be seen.

Mr Oxley himself is sceptical, saying that even if the appeal fails “it won’t resolve the fundamental issue which is continued private ownership.”

He says this “can only be resolved through Leeds City Council either buying the site or accepting the argument that compulsory purchase is in the public interest”.

People unfamiliar with cricket are often baffled that a match can last for five days and end in a draw. The fight for the future of this old ground, between various parties, has lasted 19 years and there’s still no sign of a winner yet.