Bristol City Council gives mayor's old boxing club a 999-year lease at no cost for land
In March, Bristol City Council gave Empire Fighting Chance a 999-year lease at no cost for land valued at £1.35m. Bristol mayor Marvin Rees used to be a member of the boxing club and was a director until 2017. He is currently an ambassador for them.
Prior to the decision, the club had held a 25-year lease to the land since 2014, on which they pay peppercorn rent. The plan approved at Cabinet, splits the land into two leases; the lease for the land where the gym is located is being extended to 35 years, and the lease for the land Empire Fighting Chance wants to use for affordable housing is being disposed of to them at nil cost for 999 years.
EFC have put in planning permission to build 38 affordable homes on the land in partnership with the housing association Sovereign. They will receive a premium from Sovereign, which will “assist [EFC] towards its costs of extending its infrastructure and service offering on the Gym Site.”
Councillor Asher Craig who is cabinet member for communities said, "I think this is a really good model around a community asset ownership to the model that Empire Fighting Chance are looking at. It continuously sustains and reinvests back into the community and the great work that they are doing."
Councillor Tom Renhard and cabinet member for housing, said he really welcomes the decision, and Councillor Craig Cheney, cabinet member for finance and deputy mayor, took the decision, which the mayor supported.
No declarations were made by the mayor at Cabinet. Two days later, on 5 March, he helped promote the boxing club as its ambassador.
There is no mention on the mayor’s register of interests that he is an ambassador for the club either.
The decision to dispose of a public asset worth £1.35m to the club has not been the mayor’s only help.
In August, Rees’s diary lists a meeting with the director of the October Club, a charity formed from hundreds of members from the “buy and sell side of London’s equity businesses”, giving money to other charities. The year’s chosen charity usually receives over £500,000. In 2022, this was Empire Fighting Chance.
The mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, spoke in support of the club at the dinner on 12 October where the total donations were revealed to be £820k.
On 13 October, the day after the Savoy, the organisers of a residents’ meeting at Easton Christian Family Centre, empty-seated the mayor and his cabinet member for housing, Tom Renhard. Neither had attended the meeting to answer questions on resident safety after Abdul Jabar Oryakhel died and eight people were hospitalised from a fire at Twinnell House.
Bristol City Council have been contacted for comment. None has yet been received.
Thanks Joanna the two stories certainly tie up thanks for sharing