Clarification of the roles and responsibilities of Duxford Parish Council (DPC) and the Duxford Community Centre CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation) (DCC).
- DPC owns the land (the Recreation Ground)
- DPC is the landlord and owns the freehold of the Community Centre and all its permanent fixtures
- DCC is the tenant and has a long-term lease with DPC, which gives it responsibiliy for the maintenance and operation of the Community Centre (CC)
In 2020: DPC and DCC:
- DPC handed over the management of the Community Centre to DCC, and on 21st July 2020, both parties signed a 25 year lease (the Primary Lease), which makes provision for DPC to be offered a share of any surplus after a certain threshold is reached (not yet achieved). The threshold value is reviewed every 5 years and was confirmed without change in 2025.
Schedule 4, para 3.1 of the Primary DPC/DCC Lease states:
“3. The Tenant (DCC) shall:
- 3.1 use reasonable endeavours to earn income for the Premises by hiring out rooms in or the whole of the Premises and entering into a Community Centre Cafe in accordance with the terms of this lease;”
In 2020: DCC and Café-19:
- DCC appointed A la Cuisine (Café-19), to provide hospitality at the CC and both parties signed a 20 year lease (the Underlease), which sets a peppercorn rent for A la Cuisine of £1 per annum for the term of the lease.
- The Underlease makes provision for DCC to receive a percentage of A la Cuisine turnover, once turnover exceeds a certain threshold.
- The Underlease includes a clause where DCC will receive 50% of the Goodwill sale price as and when AlaC Ltd sells the business.
- The Underlease allows DCC absolute discretion to change both Turnover threshold and turnover percentage on annual review.
- The leases were drawn up in a time of great uncertainty (post Covid-19 pandemic).
Subsequently:
DCC decreased the Threshold Percentage in 2021 and increased the Threshold in 2023 of the Underlease. Going forward, the threshold figure will be adjusted annually in line with the government published CPI. These changes, not approved by DPC, mean that no DCC income has been generated by A la Cuisine to date (March 2026).
The DCC Board of Trustees consists of up to twelve individuals. Two of these are proposed by DPC and serve as the channel of communication between the Charity and the Council. However, in 2025 a number of individual Parish Councillors requested DCC to consider adjusting the Turnover percentage and/or the Turnover threshold, in order to generate an income from Cafe 19/A la Cuisine.
Such changes would satisfy all those who believe that a business operating from facilities within the CC, which benefits from the regular footfall from groups that pay to use the CC, should be making a regular financial contribution towards the running of the CC.
DCC confirmed that they are satisfied with the current terms of the Underlease, which has provision that DCC will receive a 50% share of the Goodwill when A la Cuisine eventually assigns the lease to another party.
Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE), guidance (Village Halls Information Sheet 40) states:
“The parish council and the village hall management committee need to be aware that once the property is held under a charity it is bound by charity law and that the parish council will have no powers of management or financial control other than its right (if provided in the village hall’s governing document) to be represented on the management committee along with representatives of other local groups.”
In November 2025, following further unresolved discussion, DPC asked the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Association of Local Councils (CAPALC) and the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) for a legal ruling on whether DPC has the right to question the terms of the Underlease. NALC declined, stating “We advise that questions arising from leases are put to the solicitors that acted for a council on the lease”, and that “the broad issues suggest that the council needs more support than what we can provide within our advisory remit, e.g. consideration of the lease between DCC and the café”
Wishing to avoid spending taxpayer money on expensive legal advice, the following was agreed at the January 2026 DPC meeting, by majority vote:
“In the absence of legal advice from CAPALC/NALC, we agree we have done all we can regarding our 2025 enquiry concerning DCC’s management of the Community Centre and Café 19 and close the matter. (We will limit the activities of the Clerk to taking only those base-line housekeeping steps necessary to fulfil DPC’s ongoing audit obligations required for the Annual Governance Statement, and of course we will continue to pass any concerns raised to the DCC via our representatives).”
- The Primary (DPC/DCC) Lease is attached below:
- The Underlease (DCC/ A la Cuisine) cannot be shared as it contains commercially sensitive and confidential information.
The information on this page is intended to provide parishioners with background to the recent discussions at DPC meetings.
Parishioners wishing to discuss matters concerning the Community Centre should approach DCC directly.
DCC is a registered charity, number 1157964. Email: duxfordcommunitycentrecb22@gmail.com
Website: www.duxfordcommunitycentre.co.uk
DCC page on the Charity Commission website for England and Wales