Osbaldwick Sports Club have responded to an announcement by Osbaldwick Parish Council that they are to seek arbitration in a bid to resolve a dispute over rent.

The sports club owe more than £700 on a rental agreement on land on which the clubhouse stands, but the two parties are at loggerheads over whether rent is supposed to be waived in lieu of maintainance work.

The dispute is threatening the future of Osbaldwick Cricket Club in the Costcutter York and District Senior League.

A statement from Dave Rippon, chairman of Osbaldwick Sports Club, reads: "With regard to the article re the dispute between Osbaldwick Parish Council and Osbaldwick Sports Club (Evening Press March 31), the PC are once again putting an erroneous and one-sided view of the dispute as they did with the leaflet that they sent to all parishioners.

The dispute is not over the rental agreement for the field, this is taken care of by a 1957 lease, but over the rent for the land the building stands on.

This was agreed as £300 per year, but to be waived in lieu of the club cutting the field, which we do, and we also spend approx. £3,000 per year on necessary maintenance to keep the fields in a condition for 'organised sports and other forms of athletic activities' for which the field was originally purchased.

This agreement was subsequently unilaterally rescinded by the present parish council causing this dispute.

We do not dispute that we have an invoice for £700 from the parish council, but they have an invoice from ourselves to cover one third of the cutting costs of £1,700.

This was allowed for in the 1957 lease and the parish council admits they have a responsibility.

The question of arbitration was put to the parish council by a sports club member and we will agree to this when we know that all items are to be included.

The parish council have £22,000 in the bank through having spent very little over the last three years and are looking to spend £12,000 on the children's play area to reduce this amount in line with auditors' requirements. They then spend nothing on the rest of the community above nine-years-old. This is left to the sports club who provide facilities and sports activities for both sexes for life and then are expected to pay for doing this.

The facilities are open to all other organisations free of charge for their own fund-raising. Everything we do is voluntary and all the profits we get go into sport."

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