At a committee meeting held at Spelthorne Borough Council on 19th January 2023, to consider the appointment of representative trustees to Laleham charities- village hall and recreation ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLdOsYXVUUo

Skip to 1 hour 25 minutes in video. It covers the council process for election/selection of trustees.

Staines South Councillor Bateson who says he has no affiliation with the football club but can be seen shaking hands with a player online in August 2022.

 

 

He put together a very one sided and inaccurate argument as to why Staines and Lammas football club members should be made Trustees instead of local people who live in Laleham.

This was all done without an open and honest conversation with local people who live in Laleham and behind the current Trustees backs.

Please sign this petition to prevent our village and charitable land gifted to us turning into the home of a football team with expansion aspirations as the major football club in Spelthorne.

Laleham Recreation Ground was gifted by the Lucan family to the people of the Parish of Laleham back in 1923, so it is our 100 year anniversary this year.

The land is governed by a trust deed that states that the ground must be used as a recreation ground for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Parish of Laleham. Laleham Recreation Ground is a registered charity. It is managed by the Laleham Recreation Ground Committee under the overall stewardship of the Trustees.

Staines Lammas (now Staines and Lammas) and others have been allowed to play football on the ground for a number of years on a commercial basis, moving away in 2009 and returning in 2015. They have long had ambitions to expand and recently they merged with the remnants of Staines Town. Most of the supporters of this combined entity appear to be ex Staines Town supporters and many of the football club committee are ex Staines Town people. Ever since the new pavilion was built around the turn of the millennium there has been friction between the inhabitants of the parish of Laleham, i.e. the rightful beneficiaries of the Trust, and the football interests, who with possibly a few exceptions are not from within the parish and therefore are not beneficiaries of the Trust but commercial customers thereof.

Quite simply, the ambition of Staines and Lammas to progress through the football pyramid requites ground improvements which, leaving aside planning issues are not considered desirable by local inhabitants.

Following their de facto merger, Staines and Lammas unveiled plans around their hopes to expand the facility at Laleham Recreation Ground without the knowledge of the Trustees, which caused further friction. Indeed, the footballers had, inadvertently of course, somehow given others the impression that they actually owned the land on which they played football.

They do not and never have done.

It is the role of the Trustees to ensure that the gifted land is used in a manner consistent with the trust deed i.e for the purpose of recreation for the benefit of the inhabitants of the parish of Laleham. Third Party use (e.g. Staines and Lammas) is allowable on a commercial basis in order to raise funds to be spent on the charitable purpose. Staines and Lammas playing on the recreation ground is not of itself part of that charitable purpose.

The Trustees quite rightly put conditions on Staines and Lammas use of the land such that their desired expansion would not happen.

Needless to say the people of Laleham do not want to give away the rights of its charity land to a football club with commercial aspirations.