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2025-12-31-accounts

Registered Charity Number: 1181333

Tinsley Community Allotment

ANNUAL REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

For the year ended 31 December 2025

Tinsley Community Allotment

Contents

Page
Legal and administrative information 1
Trustees' annual report 2 - 11
Accountants’ Report 12
Receipts and payments account 13
Statement of assets and liabilities 14
Notes to the accounts 15 - 16

Tinsley Community Allotment

Legal and administrative information for the year ended 31 December 2025

Trustees

Name

Timothy Shortland Rodney Heslop Sheila Sutherland Michael Steadman Mary Sewell

Position Chair Treasurer Secretary

Other key personnel Jacqui Dace Jess Banham

Community Allotment Worker Community Allotment Worker

Charity number 1181333 Company number CEO16034

Principal address

C/o Tinsley Forum 120-126 Bawtry Road Sheffield S9 1UE

Accountants

Seven Hills Accountants Limited 57 Burton Street Sheffield S6 2HH

1

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees' annual report For the year ended 31 December 2025

The trustees submit their annual report and the financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025.

Structure, governance and management

Tinsley Community Allotment is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation which registered with the Charity Commission on 21 December 2018. Tinsley Community Allotment is governed by the rules and regulations set down in its governing document as last updated on 21 December 2018.

The organisation started operating in February 2019, previously it was operated as part of the Tinsley Tree project, but has now transitioned to being an independent charitable organisation.

Method of Recruitment and Appointment of Trustees

Trustees are recruited through putting out requests within the allotment, gardening and horticultural network in Sheffield. Trustees are appointed by invitation to attend a meeting, with information regarding the roles and responsibilities having been shared prior to the meeting. Appointment includes signing a trustee declaration.

Relationship with any related parties

Charitable objectives and activities

The objects of the charity are:

  1. to further or benefit the residents of Tinsley, South Yorkshire without distinction of gender, sexual orientation, race or of political, religious or other opinions by providing allotment facilities in the interests of social welfare for recreational leisure time occupation with the objective of improving life for the residents.

  2. to advance the education of the public, in particular young people, by providing practical horticultural activities with links to the national curriculum.

In shaping our objectives for the year and planning our activities, the trustees have considered the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit. This report illustrates the activities undertaken to support the public benefit requirement.

The activities we do to meet our objectives are:

Tinsley Community Allotment is open on Friday mornings offering educational and experiential sessions to school children from the local primary school – Tinsley Meadows Primary Academy. Two groups attend each week during term time and we occasionally offer one-off sessions to whole year groups (split into smaller groups) linking with particular national curriculum themes in school. Activities offered to these children include: sowing and planting; riddling compost; leaf collecting and composting; weeding, watering and harvesting; themed scavenger hunts; art and crafts.

The allotment is also open on Friday afternoons to the general public. These sessions are aimed more towards local adults during term time, but are generally open to all. Volunteers attend sessions and help with all tasks on the allotment: sowing, planting, tidying, composting and planning what to grow.

2

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees' annual report For the year ended 31 December 2025

The activities we do to meet our objectives (continued)

Visitors are offered harvested produce to take home with them at the end of the sessions. The allotment is also offered as a space for relaxing, socialising and learning about horticulture.

In 2021 we set up an allotment-based, weekly toddler group on Thursday mornings in term time. This is aimed at families from the local and nearby areas with pre-school aged children. The children can attend with carers, and we offer them allotment themed activities, art and crafts, toys, a music wall, a chance to relax with a book in the reading den, snack time, harvested produce and social opportunities for the parents and carers.

Tinsley is part of the Darnall Ward and falls within the 10% most deprived nationally. Tinsley area is culturally diverse, with a large BAME population, including transient communities such as Slovak Roma. There are high levels of need including prevalence of poor mental health, social isolation in the elderly, chronic ill-health and co-morbidity as well as low levels of physical activity, uptake of services e.g. poor nutrition and obesity, low literacy levels (particularly where English is not a first language).

Activities undertaken at Tinsley Community Allotment address a number of these differing priorities within the local area, including:

Improvement to health, wellbeing and self-esteem – the undertaking of organic food cultivation provides excellent opportunities to undertake gentle exercise and also can improve diet and reduce levels of obesity. Improvements to wellbeing and self-esteem are widely documented.

Building communities – our activity is open to all members of the community and, most recently, has involved people between the ages of 1 and 80 years of different genders. Our volunteers are also ethnically diverse. As such, our project supports local community cohesion by bringing people together for a common goal.

Poverty and welfare – our activity assists local poverty and welfare by empowering local people to cultivate their own food. All organic fruit and vegetable crops are shared with volunteers on a regular basis. Eating and tasting is also undertaken.

Environment – the activity demonstrates excellent horticultural practice, introducing the principles of organic food cultivation and also recycles all of its green waste in order to produce compost and leaf mould.

3

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees ' annual report - continued For the year ended 31 December 2025

Achievements and performance Numbers:

We have had 360 different visitors this year, 159 of these being adults and 201 children. These numbers are similar to last year’s figures.

This year we have continued to bring in a large number of volunteers and visitors to the allotment on the two days that we are open in the week. We attribute this in a large part to having continued to develop the relationships and collaborations that we have built with local people and other organisations in the area over recent years.

After Easter we re-opened our toddler sessions in conjunction with Manor and Castle Development Trust. These sessions were popular with the families who attended, but unfortunately the number of toddlers has decreased due to new funding for younger children’s nursery places. We have decided to pause this group for 2026 and instead hope to build on the success of our carers’ group by offering more sessions for these women who have requested them.

In total we had 102 visitors from Tinsley Meadows Primary School. The sessions for pupils were taken up in the early part of the year by a class of 9 children with special educational needs that attended in 2024. In the autumn term a new group of 10 Year 4 children attended. We also hosted two half day sessions for the whole of FS2 as we have done in previous years, bringing 53 children and 13 adults to the site. We continued to also have a shorter session where we worked with children who needed some time out of the classroom environment with one-to-one support. They attended by themselves with a Teaching Assistant and a friend of their choice. Six children visited in total, and we felt that these opportunities were really valuable to the students involved.

This year we held five holiday family events and achieved high numbers of visitors. The Easter open day saw 60 visitors, the autumn Apple Day had 77 and the 3 summer days saw a combined total of 188 attendees. Of these 325 people, 187 were unique visitors coming to the allotment for the first time that year. We are grateful for the school publicising our events and to the staff at Tinsley Forum who displayed leaflets and spread the word.

Our regular volunteers include a local family who attend most weeks to water their planters, bring friends to view the allotment and harvest crops. They have also joined in with our holiday sessions and the carers’ group that we run, bringing friends and neighbours with them. Our 2 long term volunteers, who have been involved with the allotment for many years, continue to come throughout the year to water and tend plants when no one else was on site. Their help was invaluable in the summer months. Other volunteers attend for a variety of reasons, including practicing English, developing gardening skills and getting out of the house for social contact.

We held our trustee AGM meeting on site in June, allowing our trustees to see what we had been working on during the year.

4

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees ' annual report - continued For the year ended 31 December 2025

Ages, Gender, Ethnicity

All details are approximate as we do not formally record this information.

Ages

Under 11 184 51%
11 – 18 18 5%
19 – 50 106 29%
Over 50s 52 15%

Gender

Overall, the gender of visitors has been 53% female and 47% male.

Ethnicity

The local population is made up of roughly 40% from Pakistan, 40% from Slovakia and 20% White British. 96% of school children in Tinsley are from BAME groups. Our regular volunteers are White British and Asian.

Summary of ethnicity White: 21% Asian/Asian British: 60% Roma/Slovakian: 11% Black/African/Caribbean/Black British: 8%

5

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees ' annual report - continued For the year ended 31 December 2025

Activities:

Online presence

This year we continued to update our social media followers and to use ‘Messenger’ and ‘WhatsApp’ to keep in touch with some of our regular visitors.

Construction & maintenance

Training

We secured funding to attend a First Aid at Work course and online courses in Food Hygiene and No Dig cultivation. Both workers passed their first aid and food hygiene qualifications while the horticultural course is ongoing.

Growing

This year we grew a variety of vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers: Squashes – courgettes, patty pan and pumpkin Legumes – Climbing French beans, borlotti beans, broad beans, mange tout Onions and Roots – Onions, spring onions, garlic, leeks, beetroot, carrots Salad crops – tomatoes, chillies, cucumbers, lettuces, rocket, cress, spinach, chard Brassicas –Kale, broccoli

Other vegetables – Sweetcorn, potatoes

Herbs – thyme, rosemary, parsley, basil, coriander, lemon balm, mint, lavender, fennel, sage, tarragon, feverfew

Flowers – sunflowers, primroses, Limnanthes, nasturtiums, daffodils, crocus, cornflowers, ajuga, calendula, salvia, marigolds, nigella, sedum

The fruit growing in the orchard area includes apples, pears, plums, raspberries, fig and mulberry. In the main allotment we have blueberries, lingonberries, jostaberries, cranberries, greengages, rhubarb, raspberries, plums, redcurrants, blackcurrants, gooseberries and cherries.

All harvested produce was given to volunteers and visitors.

6

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees ' annual report - continued For the year ended 31 December 2025

School activities

The sessions up until the summer this year were taken up by the same class of children with special educational needs that attended last year. In the autumn term a new group of Year 4 children attended and we look forward to welcoming them back next spring. We also had a weekly session for two children who benefitted from a one-to-one adult to child ratio.

Activities with the children this year included: sowing and planting, making rot pots, seed saving, weeding, watering, harvesting crops, and woodchipping paths. They also played allotment-themed games and took part in craft activities such as making bug stones. We produced an allotment diary with drawings and photographs that the children had taken, which they took back to school at the end of the year. At the end of term, we held an awards ceremony to celebrate each pupil’s involvement on the allotment, with medals for best team member, best digger, best sunflower grower etc.

In addition to the regular sessions with school, we also hosted two sessions for the whole of FS2 as we have done in previous years. They visited with staff and parent/carer volunteers and carried out bug hunts and photo trails.

Toddler activities

In conjunction with Manor and Castle Development trust, we ran weekly sessions in term time offered to families of pre-school children in the local area. Sessions included outdoor activities aimed at toddlers such as playing in a digging pit, making sounds on the music wall, and looking at books in the reading den. We provided age specific gardening activities and social opportunities for both children and their carers. Each session ended with a snack and a drink, often including some allotment fruit or vegetable to try. Parents and carers were regularly offered seasonal harvested produce to take home. This project enabled us to continue to develop our relationships with parents and carers as well as strengthening the connections already made with another community initiative.

7

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees ' annual report - continued For the year ended 31 December 2025

Tinsley Caring Hands and Heart

Once again, we ran four weekly sessions for this local carers’ group. We had 9 members attending and the sessions were very successful. The women took part in craft activities such as making paper flowers and decorating cards with pressed foliage. They also carried out gardening activities including seed saving, propagating houseplants, and planting bulbs in pots they had decorated. These activities were all suitable for people to take part in while sitting at a communal table. This allowed everyone to chat together throughout the session and to help each other with their crafts. It also meant the group was suitable for people who were less physically mobile. Half way through each session we had a break to share a hot drink, some homemade cakes and some fruit. At the end of each session there was a chance to take home some crops that

had been harvested from the allotment that morning.

We feel the group was very successful in providing carers with a break from their responsibilities. It was a chance for the women who attended to chat and laugh together while being sat outside a green space, getting the benefit from being in nature and from socializing. The women who had attended the group last year seemed to have grown in confidence, spending longer on each task and taking pride in their creations.

Spring, Summer and Autumn Family Events

In the Easter holidays we had an open day with activities such as seed saving, propagating houseplants and sowing herbs. All four days were very well attended and enjoyed by all. On the busiest day we had 96 people in the allotment! There were different treasure hunts and trails, home-made cakes and refreshments, and craft activities. Each week people could take home any harvested produce available. We also invited the Sheffield Museums outreach team to have a table on one of the open days, and the children were fascinated to see the shells and fossils in their collections. In October we had an Apple Day attended by 77 people, where we juiced apples and had autumn crafts and games.

8

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees ' annual report - continued For the year ended 31 December 2025

Links with the community

As part of the delivery of our activities, we aimed to make connections with local community initiatives and groups in order to develop opportunities for partnership working and to further promote our activities.

9

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees ' annual report - continued For the year ended 31 December 2025

Evaluation

We have continued to offer locally produced crops to all visitors, build on our collaborations with other organisations and improve the allotment for everyone who visits.

We once again welcomed children from Tinsley Meadows Primary Academy to the site, offering the pupils a regular term time visit to learn about horticulture, take part in fun activities and take harvested crops back to school.

The Friday afternoon public sessions have continued to bring in new volunteers, as well as our regulars. Volunteers have benefitted from gaining new skills, being outdoors and having opportunities to socialise.

We held five well attended, successful open day events in the school holidays, bringing many new families to the allotment.

We have built on the collaborations we have with other local organisations. For the fourth year running we worked with Tinsley Caring Hands and Heart offering gardening and craft activities. The women that attended these sessions benefitted from social interaction, increased confidence and time away from caring. We made a new connection with Sheffield Museums who took part in one of our open days.

We aim to offer a friendly and welcoming environment for all to relax, learn new skills, meet new people and benefit from being outdoors. We believe Tinsley Community Allotment has had another successful year.

10

Tinsley Community Allotment

Trustees ' annual report - continued For the year ended 31 December 2025

Plans for the future

We plan to continue running school and open sessions from March to October in 2026. The plan is also to continue to develop our collaborations with other community groups and organisations in the area. We will continue to offer holiday sessions, with themed days in the summer and October school holidays.

Financially we will continue to pay our staff for two days a week from the start of March until early October (including paying for half a day admin time, weekly) and then pay them for one day a week until the end of 2026. In 2026 we propose to employ the sessional staff for 20 weeks at one day a week and 30 weeks at two days a week.

Meadowhall will provide the funding for school sessions and will also fund the carers’ group. As part of this agreement, we will continue to work with staff from Meadowhall, by offering them volunteer work days. We are currently waiting to hear if we will be given the Eon Community Fund grant for 2026 to pay for our open sessions. We are also waiting to hear if we have been successful with our South Yorkshire Community Foundation application for funding to run summer and autumn events.

We will also continue to investigate any other funding streams that are relevant to the project. The plan is to continue with our online presence with regular social media posts.

Reserves policy

We have reviewed our Reserves Policy and, after assessing the risk profile of our income streams and fixed and variable costs, have introduced a new reserves policy target at a range between £3,162 and £5,162 a year, if all funding streams are successful for 2026. This will enable the allotment to continue with current grant levels for approximately a range of between 2.8 and 4.6 years working on the current reserves in the bank.

At the end of the accounting year, we still had £100 restricted fund to spend from the Tinsley Trust Fund winter sessions which were completed in March 2026. The free reserves at 31 December 2025 were £14,641. Based on the current forecast for the number of days employed into 2026 and income levels remaining the same, our reserves spend of £5,162 will use the reserves within 2.8 years.

Approved by the trustees on 15 June 2026

Signed on their behalf by:

J R Heslop Trustee

11

Accountant’s report to the Trustees of Tinsley Community Allotment on the Preparation of the Unaudited Financial Statements for the year ended 31 December 2025

In order to assist you to fulfil your duties under the Charities Act 2011, we have prepared for your approval the accounts of the Tinsley Community Allotment for the year ended 31 December 2025 from the charity's accounting records and from information and explanations you have given us.

As a practising member firm of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), we are subject to its ethical and other professional requirements which are detailed at http://www.icaew.com/en/membership/regulations-standards-and-guidance.

This report is made solely to the Board of Trustees of the Tinsley Community Allotment, as a body, in accordance with the terms of our engagement letter dated 02/02/2023. Our work has been undertaken solely to prepare for your approval the accounts of the Tinsley Community Allotment and state those matters that we have agreed to state to the Board of Trustees of the Tinsley Community Allotment, as a body. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the Tinsley Community Allotment and its Board of Trustees as a body for our work or for this report.

It is your duty to ensure that the Tinsley Community Allotment has kept adequate accounting records and to prepare statutory accounts that give a true and fair view of the assets, liabilities, financial position and surplus of the Tinsley Community Allotment. You consider that the Tinsley Community Allotment is exempt from the statutory audit requirement for the year.

We have not been instructed to carry out an audit or a review of the accounts of the Tinsley Community Allotment. For this reason, we have not verified the accuracy or completeness of the accounting records or information and explanations you have given to us and we do not, therefore, express any opinion on the statutory accounts.

Seven Hills Accountants Limited 57 Burton Street Sheffield S6 2HH

26/06/2026

12

Tinsley Community Allotment

Receipts & payments account For the period ended 31 December 2025

Notes
Receipts
Grants & donations
2
Charitable activities
3
Total receipts
Payments
Equipment
Resources
Seeds & plants
Insurance
Accountancy
Sessional Support wages
Admin
Other
Publicity
Total payments
Net receipts/ (payments) for the year
Transfers between funds
Net movement in funds after transfers
Total funds brought forward
Total funds carried forward		 Unrestricted
fund
£
250
830
1,080
38
56
25
183
495
2,687
3,980
-
-
7,464
(6,384)
-
(6,384)
21,025
14,641		 Restricted
fund
£
9,286
-
9,286
241
471
325
-
-
8,173
-
1,240
22
10,472
(1,186)
-
(1,186)
1,286
100		 Total
2025
£
9,536
830
10,366
279
527
350
183
495
10,860
3,980
1,240
22
17,936
(7,570)
-
(7,570)
22,311
14,741		 Total
2024
£
11,778
690
12,468
227
430
255
176
390
11,070
3,330
214
52
16,144
(3,676)
-
(3,676)
25,987
22,311

13

Tinsley Community Allotment

Statement of assets and liabilities As at 31 December 2025

Cash assets
Balances at bank:
Current account
Total
Debtors
Other debtors
Liabilities
Creditors
Accountancy		 Unrestricted
fund
£
14,641
14,641		 Restricted
fund
£
100
100		 Total
2025
£
14,741
14,741
2025
£
10
10
2025
£
-
504
504		 2024
£
22,311
22,311
2024
£
-
-
2024
£
14
495
509

These Financial Statements are accepted by the trustees on 15 June 2026

Signed on behalf of the Board of Trustees by:

J R Heslop Trustee

14

Tinsley Community Allotment

Notes to the accounts For the period ended 31 December 2025

1 Receipts & payments account

Receipts and payments accounts are statements that summarise the movement of cash into and out of the organisation during the financial year. In this context "cash" includes cash equivalents, for example, bank accounts where cash can be readily withdrawn to pay for debts as they become due.

Unrestricted funds comprise of general funds and designated funds. General funds are expendable at the discretion of the trustees in the furtherance of the objectives of the charity.

Restricted funds are subject to specific conditions by donors as to how they may be used. The purposes and uses of the restricted funds are set out in the notes to the accounts

2 Grants & donations

Donations
Sheffield City Council Ward Pot
British Land Grant
Eon Community Fund
Hubbub Foundation
Tinsley Forum
Tinsley Trust Fund
Income from Charitable activities
Contracts and projects
Activity session income
Restricted funds
Hubbub Foundation - Nature Hubs project
South Yorkshire Community Fund
Eon Community Fund Grant
British Land Grant
Hubbub Foundation - Summer family open days
Tinsley Trust Fund
LAC Ward Pot		 Opening
balance
1-Jan-25
£
1,277
2
-
7
-
-
-
1,286		 Unrestricted
funds
£
250
-
-
-
-
-
-
250
Unrestricted
funds
£
830
830
Receipts
£
-
-
550
3,920
2,000
2,000
816
9,286		 Restricted
funds
£
-
816
3,920
550
2,000
-
2,000
9,286
Restricted
funds
£
-
-
Payments
£
(1,277)
(2)
(550)
(3,927)
(2,000)
(1,900)
(816)
(10,472)		 2025
Total
£
250
816
3,920
550
2,000
-
2,000
9,536
2025
Total
£
830
830
Transfers
£
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 2024
Total
£
37
-
3,921
3,000
4,000
820
-
11,778
2024
Total
£
690
690
Closing
balance
31-Dec-25
£
-
-
-
-
-
100
-
100

3 Income from Charitable activities

4 Restricted funds

Hubbub Foundation - Nature Hubs project

A Nature Hubs project with themes of Increasing access and bringing people together. Funding to run three summer family open days and to improve the orchard by planting new fruits in the orchard, add signage and carry out tidying and maintenance on the site. Also funding for training for the two sessional support workers.

South Yorkshire Community Fund

Funding to run sessions over autumn and winter in order to provide continuity for regular visitors.

Eon Community Fund Grant

Funding to run an Easter open day at the allotment.

15

Tinsley Community Allotment

Notes to the accounts For the period ended 31 December 2025

4 Restricted funds (continued)

British Land Grant

Funding for three projects:

1) To run a programme of organic fruit and vegetable cultivation sessions for local school children

3) To run one off sessions at the allotment for a full year group of FS2 pupils accompanied by staff and parents.

A donation of £250 for the materials for Meadowhall volunteer days was also received.

Tinsley Trust Fund

Funding for two projects:

1) To run an open day in Autumn for pressing apple juice, bulb planting and other family activities.

2) Funding towards monthly winter sessions

LAC Ward Pot

Funding received to fell a dangerous tree

Prior year
Sheffield City Council Ward Pot
South Yorkshire Community Fund
Eon Community Fund Grant
British Land Grant
Tinsley Forum Under 5's		 Opening
balance
1-Jan-24
£
-
272
-
-
-
272		 Receipts
£
4,000
-
3,000
3,821
820
11,641		 Payments
£
(2,723)
(270)
(3,000)
(3,814)
(820)
(10,627)		 Transfers
£
-
-
-
-
-
-		 Closing
balance
31-Dec-24
£
1,277
2
-
7
-
1,286

5 Trustees' remuneration

Trustees received no expenses, remuneration or benefits in this period.

6 Transactions with related parties

No other transactions have taken place with related parties during the year, other than those included in note 5.

16