![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1_Kuumba-centrejpeg.jpg\")
Kuumba is situated on Hepburn Road and has been a community space in St Pauls for 50 years.(Image: Yvonne Deeney)<\/p>\nThe council will now have to pay a hefty legal billKuumba is situated on Hepburn Road and has been a community space in St Pauls for 50 years.(Image: Yvonne Deeney)<\/p>\n
A council attempt to take back control of a community centre in Bristol has backfired – after a judge ended a long-running legal dispute<\/a> by rejecting the council\u2019s case and taking the unusual step of appointing new trustees from the local community. The council will now be left with a hefty legal bill for a case that was started under the previous Labour<\/a> Mayoral administration.<\/p>\n The case came to a head two years ago when those running the council-owned Kuumba Centre in St Pauls effectively barricaded themselves in<\/a> and refused to leave when Bristol City Council<\/a> ordered them to leave and told the community it would be taking back the centre and installing a new management team.<\/p>\n That sparked a packed public meeting<\/a> in September 2023 that ended with the community backing the woman who had been running the Kuumba Centre since 2011, Sister Nwanyi Aduke, and pledging to occupy the building round the clock to stop the council physically taking control and changing the locks. The then Labour deputy mayor Asher Craig and the council said the centre needed major investment and a proper management board of trustees, and those running the centre had been doing so without permission<\/a> or a lease since 2022.<\/p>\n The council pulled back from physically taking over control of the centre back then in 2023 and instead pursued a legal case, taking the people running the centre to the Civil Court in Bristol to formally eject them from running the centre. Last year, a community campaign was renewed in St Pauls to bring people together<\/a> to support the fight to keep control of the community centre, with a petition calling on the council to end the legal case and start discussions with those in charge at the centre over a way forward that didn’t involve going to court.<\/p>\n But the council continued to pursue the legal challenge, taking the group running the Kuumba Centre to the Civil Court to ask a judge to give them legal permission to kick them out. On Friday, after a two-year court case, and many adjournments, the judge decided in favour of the group of community leaders in St Pauls, telling the council it had no right to kick them out.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Kuumba Centre supporters vow to block council eviction of community ‘lifeline’<\/a>READ MORE: Campaign continues to keep Kuumba run by the community<\/a><\/p>\n The case was finally reached a conclusion last Friday, with the court room packed full of supporters of the Kuumba Centre management.<\/p>\n And the judge in the case, Judge Wales, went one step further. In an unusual move, he didn\u2019t just tell the council they could not remove Sister Nwanyi from the Kuumba Centre, he also ordered that she be confirmed as a legal trustee, alongside three others who stepped forward to join her – Torkwase Holmes, Ayannah Griffith-Barrett and Ruth Nestor, on behalf of the Kuumba Community Centre.<\/p>\n After the decision, there was something of a party atmosphere outside the Civil Justice Centre in Redcliffe, with supporters starting up a sound system. Sister Nwanyi posted on social media that she and the group came into court \u2018as trespassers but came out as Kuumba Centre appointed legal trustees\u2019.<\/p>\n The council, who had brought the lengthy legal action against the Kuumba Centre as the claimant in the case, was given no order for costs, so will have to foot its own big legal bill for the failed attempt to take the centre back.<\/p>\n Bristol Live asked Bristol City Council about the case, and a response is awaited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council will now have to pay a hefty legal billKuumba is situated on Hepburn Road and has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[51856,381,3893,10648,748,30,393,4884,528,285,11561,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-359802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-black-communities","9":"tag-bristol","10":"tag-bristol-city-council","11":"tag-bristol-live","12":"tag-britain","13":"tag-courts","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-labour-party","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-st-pauls","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115061938452030815","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_Kuumba.jpg\")
The Kuumba Centre hosts live music every Friday evening.(Image: Kuumba)<\/p>\n