Bristol City Council and the Society of Merchant Venturers who run the city’s Downs open space are being taken to court by furious local residents.
People living around Clifton and Durdham Downs have begun legal proceedings against the Downs Committee for the way in which it secretly handed a 20-year lease to Bristol Zoo to allow zoo visitors to park on the Downs.
The group of residents taking the legal action are called Downs for People, and in formally announcing the legal action, they said they believed the Society of Merchant Venturers had ‘taken control’ of the Downs.
The legal action states the Downs Committee does not have the power to allow car parking on the Downs, and the behaviour of some of the members on the committee ‘falls far short of what we expect of a public body’.
The Downs Committee manage and run the Downs under an Act of Parliament from 1861. Half the members of the committee are elected councillors, the other half members of the Society of Merchant Venturers.
That organisation, which runs schools and nursing homes in the city and whose members are drawn from the region’s business community, has come under increased scrutiny recently - especially since the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston.
Now, the Society’s influence and activities controlling the Downs is under scrutiny too, and will be the subject of a court case.
What is the Bristol Zoo parking row?
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For decades, the Downs Committee has allowed Bristol Zoo to take over part of the Downs near the Zoo for a 700-space car park on busy days during the summer.
For years, local residents have challenged that, and the agreement which allows this to happen has always been only temporary, usually for five years at a time.
Back in 2017, Bristol City Council’s planning committee told Bristol Zoo the temporary permission it would give would be the last.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that the Downs Committee had held a secret, behind-closed-doors meeting about Bristol Zoo and granted them a 20-year lease - something which was not made public until this year.
Elected politicians on the Downs Committee said they had been left in the dark about this, but when pressed on it by Downs For People, the de facto chair of the Downs Committee, Lord Mayor of Bristol, Cllr Jos Clark, said the council was satisfied the agreement was legal.
That now looks set to be tested in the courts, after a fundraising drive by Downs For People to pay for the legal action was successful.
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Downs For People’s solicitor has now written to the Lord Mayor with a deadline of the end of next week to respond.
Spokesperson Susan Carter said residents were angry the Downs Committee had refused to provide information about how the decision was made.
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“Our legal advice has confirmed that the Committee has no power to grant a licence,” she said. “Further, the group’s research has shown a transfer of power from elected councillors acting in public, to a Merchant Venturer-chaired committee meeting in secret,” she added.
“Our legal advice confirms points we have made to the Downs Committee for many years - the Committee does not have the power to licence use of any part of the Downs as a car park.
“The behaviour of the Downs Committee falls far short of what we expect of a public body,” she added.
“It has ignored our reasonable requests for information. We still do not know when this 20-year licence was granted and by whom. To avoid unnecessary legal costs, we asked the Lord Mayor either to explain how the decision was lawful or to accept that it was not. We received no explanation. Our pre-action letter requires the Lord Mayor to disclose details of the licence and relevant meetings. It states that to comply with the 1861 Act, the Committee should revoke the licence,” she added.
Downs For People say that until 2013, the Downs Committee acted as a whole, but then powers were transferred to sub-groups, and claim there is now a ‘single, powerful sub-group, the Events and Finance sub-group’.
“This is chaired by the Master of the Merchant Venturers, with three Merchants and four councillors as members,” said Downs For People.
“It has delegated powers to decide on major events between meetings if this is necessary. It meets ‘behind closed doors’ and presents only a short account of proceedings to the whole Committee,” a spokesperson added.
In 2017, Bristol Live revealed how this group had charged organisations like the Downs Festival and the Moscow State Circus tens of thousands of pounds to hire smaller areas of the Downs for shorter periods, compared to just £166 a day for Bristol Zoo to use part of the Downs as a car park over a longer period of time.
Bristol Zoo has always had close links with the Society of Merchant Venturers, and one of the Society’s members is a trustee of the Zoo.
Susan Carter described the takeover of the Downs Committee as ‘an unopposed coup’.
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“The Downs Committee is no longer functioning as set out in the 1861 Act,” she said. “Our legal advice is that the Committee has no power to delegate its powers. The Merchant Venturers have taken control and are exercising it in a secretive, unhelpful and unrecorded fashion.
“The elected councillors on the committee have ceded control without protest. The last recorded meeting of the Events and Finance Sub-Group in February, when the decision on the 20-year licence might have been taken retrospectively - was attended by the Master of the Merchant Venturers, three Merchants and only one councillor. This has been an unopposed coup!” she added.
Ms Carter said Downs For People believed attention on the Merchant Venturers in other areas of public life, including education and their role in helping to run the city, should extend to the Downs.
“The Society of Merchant Venturers promised to re-examine their role in the city after the removal of the Colston statue,” she said.
“In June we wrote to both the Merchants and the Lord Mayor suggesting reform of the Downs Committee. We received no reply. We believe that the workings of this committee need to be examined to ensure that they are lawful under the 1861 Act, while also seeking to create a management structure fit for the 21st century.
“As a first step, we call upon councillors to re-assert the authority of the full Committee, meeting in public, over any sub-group.
“The Committee should then consider urgently how it can be succeeded by a new body more representative of those using the Downs for recreation and of the city as a whole. We suspect that a significant proportion of Merchant Venturers do not even live in Bristol,” she added.
Bristol Live has approached both Bristol City Council and the Society of Merchant Venturers for a response.