Will The Real Marconi Club Please Stand Up

UPDATED 27/04/23

It’s quite common for an organisation to claim they are running a “community centre” in an attempt to get round planning rules. The planning category for a community centre is called D1, we’ll refer to that term in the piece.

For the purposes of this piece we have used the old building use categories, rather than the new one ones which became law on 01/09/20.

So let’s start at the very begining.

The building that is now known as the Hamptons came about as the result of a land sale in 2004 by BAE Systems who owned a large tract of land off Behive Lane. A clubhouse and sports grounds were already in place, and the land sale facilitated the construction of the Clarion Gate Development (by SEH French Ltd) in return for the construction of a custom built “community facility building, tennis courts and associated car park” Ref 04/02419/FUL (read it here). Please note that the development is not described as a D1 Community Centre

Forward a few years to 2008 and we see another planning application, setting out the club plans in more detail with a few amendments ref 08/01872/FUL (read the Decision Notice here). The club use is described as

“The new building would provide a community hall , bar, games room, a gymnasium, three squash courts and ancillary facilities on the ground floor with an additional bar, gamesroom , meeting rooms and changing rooms with in a first floor”.

Still very much to us a sports and leisure club !

Another application with more amendments appeared in 2011 under the reference 11/01814/FUL (read the Officers Report here). Although the amendments deal with car parking and rubbish storage, contained in the Officer’s Report we see

“Maximum vehicle parking standards at Appendix C of the Core Strategy indicates one space for every 22 square metres of gross floorspace for Use Class D2 assembly and leisure uses”.

And we see the a use class used for the first time, but it’s not D1 or Sui Generis (as the council currently claim) , it’s D2 Assembly and Leisure, exactly what you’d expect for a sports and leisure club.

The club opened in 2012 under the name the Marconi Social club and offered social events and fitness classes with three bars, four meeting rooms, squash courts, a gym and a function hall.

For rateable purposes in 2011 the building was described as a “leisure centre and premises”, and in 2012 as “club and premises”. Still no mention of the term “community centre”

The club was sold in 2017 to Hamptons Sports and Leisure Ltd (big clue in the title here) with Nav and Aunjali Johar listed as directors. The company’s listed business is described as “ 93120 Activities of sports clubs” The description at that point for rateable purpose was still “club and premises”. No mention of the term “community centre”.

The final sale of the Hamptons completed on 14/02/20 to the current owners the Chelmsford Muslim Society, with the charity now listed as the major shareholder of Hamptons Sports and Leisure Ltd. The business activity listed on the Companies House entry is still “ 93120 Activities of sports clubs” and it’s description for rateable purposes is still “club and premises”. No mention of the term “community centre”

CONCLUSION

The Hamptons is not a community centre. It has never held or applied for the necessary D1 category planning permission, and for rateable purposes it has never been described as a “community centre”.

Legally it is a privately owned sports and leisure club. Unqualified opinions by Essex Police and ward/parish councillors cannot alter this fact.

The building is currently operating under a Sui Generis building classification (which we now dispute), used when a building fits more than one planning category. This does not award the specific permissions of the D1 category to the building, and cannot be used as a catch all classification.

In fact a document we discovered recently (from 2011) describes the building use as “D2 Assembly and Leisure”. The eagle eyed amongst you, would have noticed that the case officer was Robin Hosegood, now the Team Leader for Strategic Development.

Chelmsford City Council confirmed on the 23/09/20 that the Chelmsford Muslim Society require planning permission to use the building as a Place of Worship, and were correct to do so. But this decision has never been enforced.

However following a complaint on the 30/09/20 (from Ayman Syed by telephone) from the Chelmsford Muslim Society, the council issued the following statement :

“ It is the Council’s opinion, based on legal advice, that the current use of the Hamptons does not require planning permission. This is based upon the use of the centre at the time of assessment on a weekly basis as follows:

• Friday prayers: taking place late lunchtime/early afternoon

• Saturday youth group: taking place within one room of the building with a mix of activities including religious instruction

The number of people attending these weekly meetings would not be material to our considerations, given their limited duration and occurrence.

With regards to one-off or annual events such as Eid, again these in planning terms would not, either in isolation or in combination with the weekly use of the centre, be considered to amount to material change of use for which planning permission is required.

The Council is not carrying out active monitoring of the use of the centre. We consider such surveillance to be disproportionate in this instance. As already mentioned, if a further complaint is received alleging any significant change to the nature or level of use of the centre, we will investigate this.

Any enforcement investigation will be carried out in accordance with our Development Management Planning Enforcement Plan”.

But despite three years of escalation of the use for public worship and religious education, with Hamptons now operating primarily as a mosque, and causing the noise and disturbance and parking issues that everyone predicted, the council refuse to act !

KBO