Upper Saxondale Residents’ Association
(USRA)

End of an Era

The USRA Committee continued to meet until 2024 whilst its assets and responsibilities were being transferred to USPC. And in March 2025, USRAcic was legally dissolved and no longer registered with Companies House. You can read more about this on the news page {not yet created}

History and role of USRA

The Upper Saxondale Residents’ Association (USRA) was established in 2003 as an informal grouping of local residents, who became its trustees, at the time that our development was created by David Wilson Homes (DWH). After the development was completed, DWH transferred a parcel of its land at Upper Saxondale to USRA, with conditions attached.

The USRA trustees decided that a specific legal entity should be created to hold the land and so the Upper Saxondale Community Interest Company (USCIC) was created in 2012, which is a type of limited company. USRA then transferred the land to USCIC and some of the USRA trustees became directors of USCIC.

USRA and USCIC co-existed side-by-side for a number of years. USRA, through volunteers, improved the land, created the woodland walk, fruit orchard and forest garden, extended the village hall and organised many events for local residents. USCIC was the formal body that owned the land and managed the finances.

It seemed needlessly complicated to have two parallel bodies, USRA and USCIC, so in 2019 they were merged as USRAcic. However as USRAcic was a bit of a mouthful, it was referred to just as USRA!

The standard ‘articles of association’ of USRA provided a governance framework in areas such as meetings, voting, appointment of directors, delegation of authority and membership. Membership of USRA was the equivalent of being a shareholder in a normal limited company and entitled the member to vote at meetings. The liability of a member was limited to £1. Membership was confined to local residents. USRA Articles of Association document, which was registered in 2012, gives more detail about what this meant.

Initially, residents made voluntary donations to help raise funds to supplement income from hiring out the hall and holding social events. However, to be a member of USRA there was a monthly subscription of £5 per household, to help fund maintaining and developing the environment at Upper Saxondale, including the hall, tennis courts, woodland walk and fruit orchard, and provide a reserve for possible future expenditure. But subscriptions were no longer necessary after May 2023 when the Upper Saxondale Parish Council was formed and funding was raised from the local parish precept part of council tax.

Members were also entitled to use the tennis courts and to become members of the Lawn Tennis Association, vote at the open meetings including Annual General Meeting and participate in decision-making. Non-members were able to attend and speak at the meetings, but not to vote. 

USRAcic Committee

Committee Directors were:

  • Ian Storey (Chair)

  • Tim Buxton (Treasurer, Membership & Tennis)

  • Georgia Moore (Secretary)

  • Gordon Moore (Director)

  • Iris Morgan (Communications)

During the period of transition whilst USRA’s assets and responsibilities were being transferred to the newly formed Upper Saxondale Parish Council (USPC), the Committee continued to meet regularly with meetings aligned with USPC meetings. The final meeting was held in 2024.