The Council and its acquisitions

I have recently received a very interesting question about what the Council did, or proposed to do, with land which it acquired by purchase or by gift.  The inquirer was particularly interested in Fleetville Recreation Ground.

In 1913 Charles Woollam acquired the remains of the former field which was not required by the executors of T E Smith, of the printing works which stood where Morrison's supermarket is now.  The field was one of three owned by St Albans Grammar School (Abbey Gateway), and by buying it from the school Charles Woollam, a governor of SAGS, was helping to swell the building fund for the new school buildings.  The field had probably remained unused for a decade, although stacks of bricks had been kept there during the period of building operations in the previous decade.  By 1913, it was probably weed infested and in poor condition.

Before the council had the opportunity do anything with it to turn it into a recreation ground, as intended by its benefactor, WW1 had begun and priorities changed.  Increasing amounts of land were pressed into service as emergency allotments, but recreation grounds and parks were generally not affected.

Of course, by 1918, the food situation was more critical than ever and we can only speculate on why Fleetville rec was still not used; after all, it was still not fit to be used for its new purpose – maybe it was being held strategically for use as a last resort. The council knew it would have to clear and seed the ground at some point, although it had proposed to turf it.  A nearby resident certainly thought it was a waste not to use the ground for allotments in the short term. 

There is also the question of the legality of the council using such land for purposes other than that which its benefactor had intended.  Charles Woollam did indeed place covenants on the transfer of land (to prevent the council using it for housing, for example).  However, the government gave local authorities permission to waive such covenants during the two wars.  This is the reason why the present Fleetville Community Centre was able to be erected as a wartime nursery by Hertfordshire County Council.  This also raised an interesting question afterwards; because the emergency nursery continued to be used for educational purposes – and it still continues to be partly used for that purpose today.  The covenant on that part of the rec has lapsed by continuous usage and is therefore no longer active.  

Hay was a standard means of continuing to make practical use of land in an interim.  When the council purchased Hatfield Road Cemetery field, hay money was earned for some years around the early graves, and this would have been considered legitimate as it helped to defray costs otherwise paid for by ratepayers.  The council would not have seen this as making a profit, simply as making a temprorary income to support that from the domestic and business rate.  The council also owned farms around the district, including, from 1929, what is now Verulamum Park.  Income was obtained from all these locations.  Hay was not obtained from the Fleetville rec field as its condition was probably too poor at the time the council took it over.  But hay was obtained from part of the recreation (front) field of Clarence Park during the first few years.  I suppose that the modern-day equivalent to hay money would be the collection of car parking charges!

Today transfers to the council – now usually by developers as part of 106 funding and other measures – often include elements to cover maintenance for a given number years.  In this way the newly acquired facility is not an immediate drain on rateable (counci tax) income.  In all these matters it is not the council’s money; but our money (either through council tax or national tax) which the council spends on behalf of everyone who lives and/or works here.