If I lose this case, councils can shut women’s spaces at will

[LCommunity]

I’m the founder of L Community, a women-only lesbian network. Earlier this year I applied to convert a disused council-controlled railway arch into a female-only lesbian venue. It met every legal test under Schedule 3 of the Equality Act 2010 – same-sex only, necessary for privacy and dignity, no mixed-sex access.

For the application, I identified specific arches that would be suitable, but made clear I would take any appropriate building if an arch was not possible. An arch is simply the lowest baseline in terms of cost and fit-out. Southwark Council still refused. They’ve given arches to LGBTQ+ groups, but in my case said they owned none – even though their own asset register lists hundreds. They also refused to carry out the Equality Impact Assessment they are legally required to do.

I’ve now exhausted their complaints process and have lawyers taking this forward. We are preparing for a judicial review of their decision, which would be the first case of its kind. If it succeeds, it will set a binding precedent forcing every local authority in the UK to apply Schedule 3 equally for women-only spaces.

Has anyone else here seen their own council refuse a lawful single-sex space? What happened, and how was it handled?

At the heart of your case is a claim that you are being treated less favorably by the Council by virtue of protected characteristics under the Equality Act.

So presumably you can show us the other organisations that have been given railway arches by the Council?

I’ve worked with council-owned and leased assets for years

I'm choosing to revert to my state of ignorance 😆 The workings of local authorities are so convoluted, I'd have to be motivated to the point of obsession to get to grips with them.

There's a lot of noise on Twitter. Unfortunately, when you’re visible and actually doing things on the ground, some people who are more focused on online performance feel threatened. That dynamic can spill over into smear campaigns, and it’s ramped up since I launched my legal case against Southwark. I’m not going to get into personalities, but the claims being repeated are false and already under formal review. The Charity Commission has already opened a case and engaged in cross-referencing with other bodies. I can’t comment further until their process is complete, but the complaint is fully evidenced and under formal review.

Yes – they’ve leased arches and comparable units to other groups, including mixed-sex LGBTQ+ organisations. All of that is in Southwark’s own public records. You can find it in their published lease register, planning portal, and asset lists, as well as their Low Line partnership documents.

Yeah, I get why it’s confusing – council asset records are a bit of a maze. I’m used to working with them daily in my job, so I know where to find and interpret the information. In Southwark’s case, the leases and ownership records are in their public register and planning files.

The L Community website says that the council's response was that “Southwark Council does not own or manage the railway arches in question.”.

Your rebuttal of that was:

(a) they exercised planning powers over the arches. Obviously - they are a planning authority and they exercise the same authority over almost every building in the borough.

(b) the Council is a 'core delivery partner' of the low line. Of course they are - Councils are often drivers of broad urban regeneration projects in their areas. That does not mean they exercise control over the private property that form part of those projects.

(c) The Council's regeneration plan includes statements about the Low Line project. "If they didn’t control the arches, they wouldn’t be writing the rules for them." Again - of course that's nonsense. Councils 'write the rules' for private property all the time. My house isn't owned and controlled by the Council because they write the planning guidance that applies in my borough.

(d) The Council has given money to LGBTQ+ projects. Fine. Not sure how that relates to whether or not the council owns or controls the railway arches.

Weird that none of your rebuttal on the website was 'they do actually own the arches' with accompanying proof?

But in this case Southwark is both the freeholder and the planning authority, and the arches sit within a regeneration project they oversee. That means they’re not just collecting rent, they’re also actively deciding how those spaces are used through their own asset strategy and planning control.

You won't have any difficulty in giving some examples then?

Because right now, you're claiming the arch you requested is owned by Southwark Council, but your website seems to be referring only to low line arches which are owned by a private company, and talks about 'control' rather than ownership.

So what organisations have leased arches from Southwark Council?

Thank you, I really appreciate that. Yes, JKR’s fund's a great initiative! Really grateful for any support people want to give here too.

The freehold for the arches I applied for is registered to Southwark Council in the Land Registry. That’s why their 'no control' statement doesn’t stand up. The other points on the site are just context showing how closely they’re involved.

The arch I applied for is a Southwark-owned freehold, not a low line leasehold. The Low Line context on the site is there because Southwark has used the 'control not own' framing across multiple arches to downplay their remit. They’ve granted leases on other arches to various organisations – the details are in the public Land Registry and lease records if you want to check.

Here's what your website says happened...

"In March 2025, Southwark Council refused our lawful request to convert a disused railway arch into the UK’s first female‑only lesbian community venue. We asked for one arch – 0.25% of their vacant stock. They control hundreds, many already given to LGBTQ+ groups." (the bolding is mine)

'Control' is an odd term to use here. Why not just say they own them?

Given that elsewhere, you claim that factors that indicate a council 'controls' property includes exercising their planning powers, being involved in urban regeneration that involves certain properties, or 'writing the rules' around urban planning projects, it strikes me that 'control' means something very broad to you, which neither any reasonable person nor, I suspect, a Court, would agree with.

And given that you've refused to provide a single link proving that Southwark Council owns (or indeed controls, or leases) hundreds of arches, it makes me wonder if, in fact, your solicitor knows even if you don't that the arches are not, in fact, owned by the Council - which is a binary and objective fact that can be readily disproved.

To what extent is the repeated reference to 'controlled' carefully chosen because it is much more subjective and arguable, and because you can't solicit donations based on false information. But on a forum such as this, where you are banned from explicitly soliciting donations but plenty of others will naively 'garden' on your behalf, you need have no such limitations on any misrepresentations of the case you'll be making in court.

I mean you can very easily provide even a single example? If they exist that is.

You're free to do the searches yourself. The arch I applied for is a Southwark-owned freehold — not part of the Low Line leaseholds. On the website, the 'control not own' point refers to the wider tactic they’ve used to obscure their remit, not to this specific arch. If you want to verify who leases arches from Southwark, you can check the Land Registry or the council’s own published asset lists.

I’m also struggling to understand the whole freehold, control, regeneration planning permission thing.

Is it not like if you own the freehold of a house you can decide to change the roof, but not that the occupiers have to host your book club every month?

Same would apply here surely?

You also state that you’d be happy to take any appropriate building if an arch wasn’t available, have you asked for an alternative venue?

The Council's published asset register does not include lessee details, nor does it include 'hundreds' of railway arches (it lists 9).

But just to come back to the merits of your case, your claim of discrimination - are you suggesting that if I, as a trans inclusive lesbian who is not trans herself wrote to the Council and said 'give me an arch please' that they would say yes? And therefore that they are treating you less favourably because of your GC opinions?

Or are you claiming that if a man wrote to the council and said 'give me an arch for an LGBTQ+ organisation' they would just say yes, thus treating you less favourably because of your sex or your sexual orientation?

It doesn't make any sense, and very deliberate language is being used for a reason here that doesn't stack up.

But here's the thing - organisations can't just rock up at the local council and demand a permanent space. Southwark Council does have commercial properties which it leases. But it has pretty specific processes for leasing.

Is the OP claiming she submitted an application for a tenancy on an advertised property and it was rejected? I don't think so given what she's said here.

For a JR to work, OP would need to demonstrate that the council acted unreasonably or irrationally. I would say if someone writes to the council demanding they 'give' you some property it is they that are unreasonable and irrational.

A quick google suggests that the Arch Company manages 900 arches in the borough. Would it not be them who lease them out?

Obviously, people are free to donate to causes as they see fit. Over the years, we've seen many Crowdfunders and, since MN has a habit of zapping posts that raise too many questions, I can only recommend that Twitter is informative. Notably, Jo Bartosch, Malleynotagain and GenderReceipts have made some useful posts with receipts.

Last night, an unknown alluded to my being sued for a post. That's an interesting response. Protocol is a LBA and terms under which one aims to resolve matters. I'm always happy to publicly retract and apologise if evidence is supplied that I'm wrong. If no evidence is forthcoming, then I - and others - can only make inferences based upon publicly available information.

In general terms, those asking for public funds should account for - beyond their say-so - where those funds are going.

Should be working now! Thank you for pointing out.

Two separate matters. The safeguarding matter regarding LGB Alliance is with the Charity Commission, who opened a case in one working day – something that happens in fewer than 1% of complaints – and are already cross-referencing with other regulators. That speaks for itself, so we can leave it with them rather than anonymous Twitter accounts.

The CrowdJustice page is for the Southwark Council Equality Act case. All funds go directly to our solicitor’s regulated client account – CrowdJustice payments cannot be connected to a personal account.

A note on Crowdjustice:

1. Funds are released weekly irrespective of whether or not the target is met.

1. If someone doesn't know where weekly funds are going, such as to an unknown law firm, they may (or may not) wish to exercise due caution.

Again, speaking in general terms about how funding works.

Happy to clarify.

I did not ‘rock up and demand to be given’ anything. I submitted a safeguarding-led application to lease a small disused council unit on community terms, we will pay rent and service charges. I identified specific available arches and also said any suitable unit would do. We applied for a pilot term, not a ‘permanent gift’.

Southwark has more than one route for space allocation. There is commercial letting, and there are community routes for underused stock. Because my request engaged Schedule 3 of the Equality Act and the Public Sector Equality Duty, the council itself treated it through complaints and senior officer correspondence rather than as a simple commercial bid. I went through Stage 1, Stage 2 and direct exchanges with Planning and Growth, Equality, and Legal. MPs also took it up. So this was not a casual ask and it was not ignored by the system.

Judicial review here is not ‘give me a unit because I want one’. It is about lawfulness of decision-making. The grounds include: failure to carry out a required Equality Impact Assessment, failure to have due regard under section 149, misdirection by pointing us to mixed sex venues that cannot meet a single-sex legal requirement, predetermination and fettering of discretion by saying there is ‘no policy cover’ for allocating space in this way, and inconsistency with the council’s own asset and regeneration trail. Those are orthodox public law grounds. Whether you agree with me or not, they are miles away from ‘irrationally demanding free property’.

I will not run the whole case on a forum, but I am happy to answer genuine process questions.

This is opportune to say briefly something about my own experience of legals.

I've been sued four times, thrice by a litigious lunatic and once by someone else. The first time, somewhat panicked, I launched a Crowdfund based upon a quote from my solicitor. Of the £12,000 raised, £6000 was donated to various GC organisations. The £6000 we spent covered numerous letters, two or three barrister conferences, filing various documents, and quite possibly a bottle of vodka to cope. It's only when you get to trial stage that costs, for hypothetical example, quadruple. Of course, £6000 was still significant but, at that time, there was no need to ask for more.

The aim should be to get in and out of litigation with an outcome you can live with. The following three times were dealt with myself.

I personally found it useful to keep receipts for solicitor invoices and proof that I had not kept funds. We often face accusations from TRAs about misuse of funds so it's important to be scrupulous. If you're not, then it's rather silly to be angry and threaten to report or sue people who feel unable to take your word.

I find this section in the crowdfunder rather concerning.

What this fund will do

This fund is directly connected to a UK law firm with a national reputation for winning high-profile equality and human rights cases. Once the £45,000 target is reached, the firm's name will appear on this page.

Your support will cover solicitor engagement, legal evidence collation, barrister briefing, formal correspondence, and pre-action protocol, leading to court proceedings against Southwark Council under the Equality Act. It will also support linked legal work on connected events and rights breaches arising from my work to establish lawful women-only lesbian spaces.

All funds will be paid directly into my solicitor's client account. I will receive no personal benefit.

So this seems a dishonest way to say that this large pot could fund different cases.

Reading this, this seems possible that these funds could be diverted to funding Jenny’s case against LGB Alliance. Or future unknown cases.

The title of this thread also seems to be misleading. Having read the crowdfunder and the posts I am not sure that title fits the situation.

To be clear, this seems to be a case about a prospective venue not an exisiting venue or business. Is the OP saying that this Council would close existing venues or block applications for existing venues/spaces that have already had tenants?