Leeds Social Centre in court next week

This arti­cle was writ­ten by vol­un­teers at the Leeds-Brad­ford Inde­pen­dent Media Cen­tre fol­low­ing inter­views with vol­un­teers from The Com­mon Place, Leeds’ rad­i­cal, autonomous social cen­tre.

The Com­mon­Place is a social cen­tre locat­ed in Leeds, accom­mo­dat­ing a broad range of com­mu­ni­ty groups. The Com­mon­Place has been open since 2005 when it received fund­ing to estab­lish a com­mu­ni­ty resource in cen­tral Leeds. Since then, it has been entire­ly vol­un­teer run. Despite hav­ing no wages to pay, The Com­mon­Place pays rent and bills just like any oth­er city cen­tre venue. More recent­ly, The Com­mon­Place has been financed by bar sales at com­mu­ni­ty ori­en­tat­ed club­nights, sup­ple­ment­ed by mem­ber­ship sub­scrip­tions and dona­tions. With­out income from the bar, they would be forced to close per­ma­nent­ly.

As a demo­c­ra­t­ic club, all major deci­sions are made at a gen­er­al meet­ing, open to all mem­bers.

At the end of July 2008, The Com­mon­Place has its Club Premis­es Cer­tifi­cate (license) with­drawn by Leeds City Coun­cil (LCC), under Sec­tion 90 of the Licens­ing Act 2003. The club believe this was unfair and are appeal­ing to have the licence rein­stat­ed. The Com­mon­Place can­not dis­cuss the specifics of the appeal process at this time due to legal rea­sons: They are keen for their sto­ry to be told in due course.

The Com­mon­Place has met with LCC twice in court (30th Sep­tem­ber, 28th Octo­ber), also del­e­gates of The Com­mon­Place met with the Licens­ing depart­ment on 15th Decem­ber 2008 with a view to resolv­ing mat­ters. On each occa­sion The Com­mon­Place has tried to deal with the coun­cil’s con­cerns in order to regain the orig­i­nal license.

A vol­un­teer from The Com­mon­Place said, “We were sor­ry to hear after our last meet­ing with them, that they did­n’t want to talk to us again before the hear­ing.” The appeal is due to be heard on 22nd to 26th Jan­u­ary 2009 at Leeds Mag­is­trates’ Court.

Anoth­er vol­un­teer, from the Bar Com­mit­tee said, “We’re puz­zled by how much inter­est the Police have shown since we’ve nev­er had any trou­ble or arrests when we’ve been putting on a night here … we just want to get things back to nor­mal.”

The Com­mon­Place are adamant that they are a mem­bers club, and that LCC have with­drawn this license wrong­ly; The Com­mon­Place is grate­ful for the con­tin­u­ing sup­port of mem­bers, donors and over 1000 Leeds res­i­dents who have signed a peti­tion in sup­port. To be kept informed, please see www.thecommonplace.org.uk where there are also instruc­tions on join­ing the mail­ing list and get­ting involved as a mem­ber.