On 19 August 2024, the City of Doncaster Council lodged a Land Registry search certifying its intended purchase of a commercial building called the Doncaster Business Innovation Centre. It had not agreed to buy it.
The building had been sold two months earlier, at auction on 19 June 2024, for £630,000. The buyer was a private company, DBIC Trading. The seller was a company wholly owned by the council itself, Arthur Street (Doncaster) Developments Limited. The sale had stalled over a disputed point on VAT. On that afternoon in August, the council filed a priority search in its own name, as if it were the buyer.
Three weeks later, the council's own solicitors wrote to the buyer's lawyers with an admission. The council had not agreed, with Arthur Street or with anyone, to buy the property. The priority search was withdrawn shortly afterwards.
The 72 hours before the filing
What happened in the days before the search was filed is set out in a signed witness statement by Joe Blackham, a former Labour cabinet member whose portfolio at the time covered council property. The statement is dated 27 January 2026. Mr Blackham provided it to the Yorkshire Post, which reported on it earlier in 2026.
On 16 August 2024, he was present at a Microsoft Teams meeting attended by the Mayor, Ros Jones; council officers and their in-house solicitors; the council's external solicitors; representatives of Arthur Street; the buyer; and the buyer's solicitor. A discussion after the meeting moved into territory the officers described as legally privileged. Mr Blackham was told he could not take part. He left.
The Mayor then told him that the sale would proceed on the buyer's VAT-inclusive position. An email went round shortly afterwards, authored by the Mayor, authorising a senior council officer to take control of the DBIC matter and to deal with it as that officer saw fit. Mr Blackham was copied.
On the morning of Monday 19 August 2024, he telephoned the buyer and told him the deal was going ahead on the VAT-inclusive basis. Later the same day, he found the position had been reversed. The priority search was filed. He saw no board minutes of Arthur Street authorising the reversal, and no evidence of the company's board meeting at all. The directors of Arthur Street were council officers of more junior rank than the one to whom the Mayor had just delegated control.
The buyer himself told Mr Blackham, on or around 27 August, that the priority search had been filed against the title. Mr Blackham says he ensured the Mayor, and senior figures at the council, were informed.
The council's own lawyers
On 12 September 2024, Arthur Street's solicitors wrote to DBIC Trading's lawyers. The letter said the priority search was being withdrawn. It said Arthur Street had not agreed, nor transacted, with the council for the disposal of the property 'by any means'. It closed with the hope that this would be enough to avoid injunctive proceedings.
The effect of an OS1 priority search, once lodged, is to freeze dealings on the registered title during the priority period. The form carries a printed statutory warning. Submitting misleading information that may cause loss is a criminal offence under section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006.
Neither the identity of the officer who authorised the filing, nor the documentary basis for the certification of an intended purchase, has been disclosed by the council.
A cabinet member told to stand down
In late August and early September 2024, Mr Blackham received emails from officers telling him the matter was no longer his concern. The matter would be handled by officers. The statement records that, from that point, he was not consulted on the transaction, and that control remained with the senior officer the Mayor had designated in the 16 August email.
His statement expresses no view on the legality or propriety of those arrangements. It records what he observed at the time. It is signed and dated.
The question at full council
In February 2026, at full council, I asked what genuine disposition the council had been protecting when it lodged that search, and who had authorised its filing. The question was removed from the published video of the meeting. The council's own rules permit such edits where a named officer appears on record. The question itself was not answered then, and has not been answered since.
A council spokesperson has declined to comment. DBIC Trading has also declined to comment, citing ongoing legal matters. The Yorkshire Post obtained the witness statement and the lawyers' letter earlier in 2026, and has reported on both.
The sale still has not completed. The building has stood with its purchase unfinished for nearly two years. The OS1 entry on the register, now withdrawn, remains the only official statement by the council of what it thought it was doing on 19 August 2024. A public body told the Land Registry it was buying something it had not agreed to buy. The council's own lawyers confirmed so in writing. The question is who wrote that declaration and who allowed it to go out in the council's name, and until that question is answered, the record sits where it sits.