Please help put insecure cricket-ground tenure on the agenda
Earlier in the week than usual, today’s Latest update brings you just one piece of news.
We’re making a co-ordinated LinkedIn push around an issue that will affect many clubs directly (and many more indirectly) over the next decade: insecure tenure and access to the grounds and facilities on which clubs depend.
Last week, Sky Cricket featured Outcasts Cricket Club in North Lincolnshire, which is fighting to retain the ground it has occupied and invested in for nearly 50 years. It is a powerful local story about families, junior cricket, women’s cricket, volunteers and a community asset at risk. A story we have highlighted in our discussions in recent months.
But it is not only an Outcasts CC story.
The Network’s research published in The Cricketer in 2025, found that around one third of responding clubs had short leases or even shorter rental arrangements for their main ground. Seventy per cent expected to need facility investment over the next decade, yet only 35 per cent of clubs with short-term tenure felt confident making that investment.
We are therefore asking a constructive question:
As the ECB’s £45 million Building Belonging in Cricket Fund begins to support new facilities in underserved communities, could a relatively modest allocation also help establish or support a specialist advice and referral route for clubs needing early legal, property, lease, valuation, planning and ownership-structure support?
This is not a call for the ECB to fund every club’s legal case, and it is not an attempt to litigate Outcasts CC’s situation on social media. It is a call for early, accessible professional help before an expired lease, insecure rental arrangement, unclear trustee position, rent demand, planning threat or grant condition becomes a crisis. It is, as those who have tried find, a capacity ECB currently doesn’t have.
Please help today
The public Network Page post is here ( https://lnkd.in/p/etzhDs4A ) :
Please do one or more of the following today:
- Like the post
This is quick, but it helps LinkedIn show the post to people beyond the Network’s existing followers. - Add a short personal comment
A genuine comment is particularly valuable. You might share whether your club:- Owns, leases or rents its main ground.
- Has faced a lease renewal, rent increase, planning issue or uncertainty over tenure.
- Has delayed investment because its future at the ground is unclear.
- Would value access to specialist legal, property, planning or ownership structure advice.
- Believes that protecting existing grounds must be part of building future cricket capacity.
- Repost it to your own LinkedIn network
This is the most important action. Your network may include other clubs, county-board colleagues, local councillors, MPs, funders, professional advisers, journalists and people who can help influence the debate. Tag them if you’re able.
How to repost
On desktop
- Open the Network’s public Page post using the link above.
- Click Repost below the post.
- Select Repost with your thoughts.
- Add one or two sentences in your own words.
- Click Post.
On mobile
- Open the Network’s public Page post.
- Tap Repost.
- Choose Repost with your thoughts.
- Add your own short message.
- Tap Post.
Please avoid a blank repost where possible. A short, personal introduction will make it more visible and more credible to your own connections.
Suggested wording for reposts
Use your own words if you can. If helpful, you can adapt one of these:
- Our club has invested heavily in facilities, but investment only makes sense when there is secure tenure and access to the ground. This is an issue the game needs to take seriously.
- New facilities matter—but protecting the successful cricket grounds and clubs we already have must be part of the same strategy.
- Many volunteer-run clubs do not have easy access to property, lease, planning or ownership structure advice. Early specialist support could prevent much more expensive crises later.
- Women’s, girls’, junior and adult cricket all need places to play. Losing established local grounds is the opposite of building cricket capacity.
- Every club should know whether its lease, trusteeship and legal structure are strong enough to support the next decade of investment.
Please keep it constructive
Please focus on the wider issue and on practical solutions. Do not speculate about Outcasts CC’s live legal position, the motives of its landlord, the actions of local authorities or named individuals.
The purpose is to make county boards, the ECB, clubs and decision-makers more aware that secure tenure is a facilities issue—and to show that the Network can help bring clubs’ practical experience together in support of better solutions.
Thank you for helping to make this visible.