LETTSOM GARDENS ASSOCIATION
ANNUAL REPORT TO CHARITIES COMMISSION - APRIL 2020- APRIL 2021
There can be no doubt that this last year has borne a challenge for all charities; and no less so than that we live, share and serve through the length and breadth of the country with purposes to alleviate the worst social and economic impacts on our communities, environment, families and people young and old. We will press forward our charitable aims to bring about the best in us and for all.
The impacts of the Coronavirus on our communities strikes hardest and quickly on the most vulnerable in our society and as a small community charity we have striven to not just maintain our work but to answer the challenges and enhance the benefits the charity brings to our community.
We are blessed to have a very active and engaged trustee group to oversee and guide the charity and this was never more apparent than when in early 2020 we began a series of discussions and meetings concerning the LGA’s response and commitment to an impending pandemic lockdown. These were very difficult discussions as our charity offers so many health and developmental benefits to the community both physical, mental and social alongside the care and experience of a small managed wild woodland in near central London.
On the 23rd March 2020 the trustee group voted by a slim majority, and the casting vote of the chair, to close the gardens.
There was a hidden bonus to this difficult decision that strikes to the heart of our charitable purposes. Throughout the Spring of the first lockdown the flora and fauna of the gardens flourished. The air was clearer, fresher and the plants, bugs and birds thrived in our ‘lockdown’ absence!
It was a relief to all when we reopened the gardens to our membership in mid May, albeit with strict social distancing criteria.
Our Chair, James La Terriere, had made it known for several months that having chaired and guided the Association for a decade the time had come to step aside. Duly on June 4th the trustee group met and elected Philippa Tilley and Marq Bailey to lead the Association as co-chairs.
The co-chair principle was in response to our increasing membership and responsibilities bearing upon a single chair and the long outstanding major issues of completing our negotiations for a new lease with our landlords, Southwark Council, and a number of failing retaining walls across the Gardens.
The LGA promptly drew in two new trustees to the group. Thus raising our trustee group to a maximum so as to best engage the challenges we faced.
As new co-chairs we aimed to devolve and delegate the work of the Association into specific Trustee working groups covering the major issues and long term aims for the development of the association.
These working groups were: Lease, Walls, Gardens, Schools and Nurseries, and a group to monitor the future working of the Association.
The first actions of the wall group was to organise a safety perimeter around the substantially failing central wall. Following surveys and measurements of the faults in the wall the first safety cordon was in place by mid-June and an increased cordon erected the following week. The work of this group has continued since to firstly bring about the demolition of the top sections of the wall and to begin negotiations with our Landlord, Southwark Council, for a full rebuilding of the lower retaining wall and the higher top section. The top wall was carefully; particularly in regard to the many trees close to the wall; demolished in the first weeks of December. The ongoing rebuild negotiations have proceeded and we are pleased to say have progressed positively with a new wall and retaining wall due to be constructed in mid 2022. We would like to thank Errol Brandy and his fellow officers from Southwark Council for helping us move this challenging project forward.
The Lease group was presented by a series of complex legal documents as Southwark Council legal officers aimed to align their leases into a more unified and modern format. We are grateful that as a long-standing charity we can call upon deep resources within previous trustees and chairs for their guidance and legal expertise. Whilst understanding the Council’s aims, the group
pressed for a lease that better reflected the particularly green nature of the Association. The details went back and forth but by the end of the year most of our concerns had been answered and the signing of a new lease was in sight. A new lease; for 25 years with 5 yearly break points up to 40 years; is to be signed with the Council in June 2021. This will be a major success as it ensures the ongoing work of the Association in our community for another generation and we hope our community’s children’s children will learn and play in the Gardens as children have for the many decades before.
Throughout this year we have sought for the Gardens membership to better represent the diverse demographics of our community. Hence we pressed forward to increase our membership and mostly focussed on our local estates. As our Treasurer points out in their report despite having no fund raising opportunities through the year we have increased our membership and this has allowed us to greatly increase our membership across the estates and families feeling the greatest impacts of the pandemic with subsidised and free memberships being distributed. Our membership of family key holders has risen from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020 by 226 and this number is still rising with a cumulative membership of over 1200 families.
Our next aim through the year was to increase outdoor learning opportunities for the many local schools and nurseries across our community. Whilst the school year has been much altered with various guidances from central government, schools are increasingly visiting the gardens for focussed green, geographic and environmental learning. In order to assist schools we established an online booking system so that schools and class teachers could review the bookings already in place and more easily plan their visits. This has been a great success and has given greater assurance to the schools and our local neighbours.
The Copleston Centre have been using the gardens for their older people Tai-Chi sessions and have included the gardens in their Dementia Walks. We have also had the Maudsley Hospital outreach team visiting the gardens with their clients and children to literally have a break and be able to talk and reflect, whilst the children enjoy the safety of the gardens and explore the wonder and calm of being in an environment where living nature and curious exploration is the space they play and create in.
Our Gardens group, who take care of the seasonal needs and cares of the trees, plants and fauna have also been very active. The footfall on the gardens as a consequence of lockdowns and social distancing has within the guidelines taken a heavy impact on the gardens. The Association has provided a quiet and safe place for our community to be still, to reflect and to know their children are safe and happy. The restorative presence of a little natural space has been a gift to our community for decades and was never needed more than in these last years.
We have signed a new lease, we will rebuild the walls, we will plant new growth for the future, and our community, children, families and schools will continue to thrive in this quiet little haven of woodland.
Le#som Gardens Associa0on
Accounts 2020-21
Accounts
Below are our Treasurer’s accounts for the year ending 31 March 2021. The LGA made an operaAng surplus of £4027 (£3195 FYE 20) on the year. For the second year running there were no events in the Gardens and thus no income from the BBQ or Summer Party. However, subscripAons were up from £2193 last year to £4740 this. We distributed approximately 300 keys, generaAng a surplus of £518, which enabled keys to be distributed free of charge to disadvantaged members of our community. Cash in the bank is a healthy £24492 which will allow the AssociaAon to increase its investment into the garden’s infrastructure throughout the coming year, now that the new lease has been agreed with Southwark Council.
Le#som Gardens Account to Year Ended 31/03/21
| Expenditure | Income £19,962.06 £780.62 |
Totals | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opening Bank Opening Cash Totals |
|||||
| £20,742.68 | £20,742.68 | ||||
| Subs (£1287 was a refund - £1300 paid not £13) DonaAons Schools Keys Misc TransacAons |
£1,287.00 | £6,027.00 £425.00 £1,170.00 £3,748.00 £0.12 |
|||
| Totals | £1,287.00 | £11,370.12 | £10,083.12 | ||
| BBQ Costs / Income Summer Party Costs / Income Totals |
£0.00 £0.00 |
£0.00 £0.00 |
|||
| £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | |||
| Lock and Key Expenses Maintenance Expenses PlanAng Expenses Insurance Expenses Commi_ee and Admin Expenses |
£3,996.97 £886.86 £556.50 £345.13 £270.00 |
||||
Totals
Closing Bank Closing Cash Totals
£6,055.46 £6,055.46
£24,492.72 £277.62 £24,770.34 £24,770.34