Charity registration number: 1184830
Wild About Clifford
Annual report and financial statements for year ended 31[st] December 2025
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Wild About Clifford
Contents
| Reference and administratve details | 3 |
|---|---|
| Trustees report | 4 |
| Statement of fnancial actvites | 10 |
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Wild About Clifford
Reference and administrative details
Trustees Dr Trevor Acreman Mrs Heather Taylor Dr Mary Hood Mr Mark Davies (joined 5[th] October 2025) Mr Nathan Johnstone (joined 5[th] October 2025) Principal Office Maytrees 44 Clifford Chambers Warwickshire CV37 8HX Charity number 1184830 Bank Santander 21 Wood St Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 6JU
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Wild About Clifford
Trustees report
The trustees present the annual report and financial statements for Wild About Clifford for the year ending 31[st] December 2025.
Trustees
Dr Trevor Acreman
Mrs Heather Taylor
Dr Mary Hood
Mr Mark Davies (joined 5[th] October 2025)
Mr Nathan Johnstone (joined 5[th] October 2025)
Introduction
Wild About Clifford (WAC) became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (Association model) on 8[th] August 2019. Having started as a community group in April 2017, members voted to become a charity at the AGM in early 2019. The primary reasons for this were to be able to legally own land and to give the potential for larger grant income. 2020 was planned to be the first full year of activities, education and fund raising but Covid 19 intervened. Activities increased again from 2022 and as of the end of December 2025, c80 members and their families had signed up to the purposes of WAC.
Objectives
The trustees shall first defray out of the income of the Charity all of the proper costs, charges and expenses of administration and management of the Charity.
The trustees shall apply the income of the Charity to promote for the benefit of the public the conservation, protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment by promoting biological diversity primarily in the village of Clifford Chambers and in exceptional cases also in the broader Parish of Clifford Chambers and Milcote and the local authority area of Stratford Upon Avon District Council.
The trustees shall also apply the income of the Charity to advance the education of the public in the conservation, protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment primarily in the village of Clifford Chambers and in exceptional cases also in the broader Parish of Clifford Chambers and Milcote and the local authority area of Stratford Upon Avon District Council.
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Wild About Clifford
Trustees report
Activities
The 5-year plan, completed in January 2020, outlined on-going conservation and education efforts along with two major long-term projects – establishment of a community orchard and a village wildlife pond. In total, a target of c£57,000 was set to fund these activities. This plan expired in 2025 and, whilst c£25,000 was raised, a shortage of available land was the key reason the plan failed to fulfil all its aims. Meanwhile, day to day activities continued. As a replacement for the 5-year plan, work began on a Local Nature Action Plan (LNAP), inspired and driven by Warwickshire’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS).
The 2025 AGM was held on 29th March 2025 with 32 members present. A review of the 2024, member survey feedback was presented and strongly indicated that WAC should keep doing more of the same.
WAC continues to be active in SWAN (South Warwickshire Area wildlife Network). Whilst it is still early days, we hope to soon have our own web presence in 2026, to share learning and to potentially have more political impact as a group.
Six events/talks were held, with the reinstatement of the ‘Annual’ apple day, a significant achievement. In addition, WAC presented the idea of the LNAP to the Parish Council in April and attended the Parish Assembly in May, including contributing Wildflower meadow seed to the goodie bags that attendees could take away. WAC has also added flyers to several of the village noticeboards during the year to encourage new members and awareness of the environment.
The trustees regarded 2025 as a successful build on previous years.
1) Conservation
WAC continued to take part and support the community science project called SafeAvon. This involved weekly/fortnightly monitoring water quality of the river Stour running through the village (a tributary of the Avon) to generate data to help inform villagers, local politicians and the water companies to the local water pollution issues. The tests continued to show nitrate and phosphate pollutants to be consistently at a high or very high level. Testing will continue fortnightly throughout 2026.
Following an attempt to adopt ‘no mow May’ for all the village verges in 2024 a new initiative was started. As only stopping mowing in May is of limited practical value to wildlife, instead a small area (c20m x 3m) of ‘no/low mow’ grass was established on the village green (it was mown once in December). This is intended to be a long-term project with the aim of getting wild flowers blooming to help invertebrates. With a very dry summer it was a slow start but some wild flower plugs were planted in December and more seeds will be broadcast in 2026.
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Wild About Clifford
Trustees report
Conservation (cont)
The other conservation activity was the maintenance of the hedge planted in the Recreation ground.
Of major significance to our local environment, Alscot Estate, whose land borders the village on one side, have had their first full year of regenerative farming. We hope, in time, this will increase measurably our local biodiversity.
We continued to keep hedgehogs in the news with hope the village population will continue to thrive - although sightings did appear to be much reduced in 2025 – the dry weather, the effects of the regenerative farming (making the local farmland more attractive v gardens) or something else?
The AGM was immediately followed by a workshop to gather members input for the Local Nature Action Plan (LNAP).
A static bat detector was erected for one week by Warwickshire Bat Group, in a tree just behind St Helens church near the river Stour. Over the week 8 bat species were recorded, bringing the total number recorded in Clifford to 9. New ones were Whiskered/Brandt’s bats, Natterer’s and the Leisler’s bat (or lesser noctule). It was encouraging that we also detected Lesser Horseshoe bats, again, as they are relatively rare in the Midlands.
A moth trap was operated throughout the calendar year with 55 nights trapping. 17 new macro species were detected for the village including a Broad barred white, a Cream bordered green pea, a Campion, a Dark Crimson underwing, a Delicate, a Latticed heath, a Kent black arches and a Small mottled willow. Over 270 macro moth species have now been identified in the village. Records were forwarded to the county recorder towards an upcoming book on Warwickshire moths.
The village allotments, an ’Asset of Community value’, continue to be an important wildlife haven and in particular seem to have supported a big increase in grass snake numbers. The allotment holders have also constructed a number of ‘dead hedges’ as refuges for wildlife and an alternative to burning woody vegetation.
There was one unconfirmed sighting of a slow worm which we shall pursue in 2026.
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Wild About Clifford
Trustees report
2) Education
The conservation efforts themselves each had an element of education but in addition several specific educational events were run.
The main events of the year were…
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1) A talk on regenerative farming by Alscot Estate
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2) A bat detecting evening
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3) LNAP workshop
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4) A wildlife gardening talk
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5) Apple Day
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6) Alscot talk 2 (hosted in Preston village hall)
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…with a total of c400 attendees.
A number of articles were published in the village magazine and the popular WAC newsletter continued with 13 newsletters over the course of the year, highlighting seasonal wildlife and issues in the village and surrounding area. They were sent out to c80 members by email from March to November.
The charity’s night time cameras and bat detectors were loaned out to villagers as they were keen to learn what was out and about in their gardens. The charity’s moth trap has been made available to members.
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Wild About Clifford
Trustees report
Public Benefit
The trustees confirm that they have complied with the requirements of section 4 of the Charities Act 2006 to have due regard to the public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission for England and Wales.
Funding and Financial Review
Over 85% of the Charities funding is expected to come from grants – with the remainder from proceeds from events and also donations. Income for the year including interest was £1,735 (2024: £1,670) with expenditure of £1,813 (2024: £1,074). The charity had a total funds and cash balance of £22,096 on 31 December 2025 (2024: £22,174).
Following a successful 2020 (5 grants worth £17,400 awarded) less effort has gone into funding until we have land to buy or lease.
Nonetheless, we are very grateful to the Thomas Jackson Education Foundation with a grant of £1,350 to cover our educational and operational costs for the year, including supporting Apple Day.
A sum of £86 from sales (2024: £40) and a further £14 from donations (2024: £49).
We will reassess our fundraising activity once we completed the LNAP which should identify funding needs.
Reserves Policy
It is the policy of the Charity to maintain free reserves of at least 24 months of operating expenditure (costs of generating funds, administration and governance costs). This was set at £4000 for 2025.
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Wild About Clifford
Trustees report
Other Activities
Recruitment of Trustees
The constitution states the body of trustees shall consist of a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 8 competent, elected trustees. Three trustees were in place at the start of 2025 with Mark Davies and Nathan Johnstone joining on 5[th] October leaving us with 5 trustees at year end. Further trustees will be sought in future. Trustees are appointed by members or trustees until their retirement or removal – they do not serve a fixed term.
Major Risks and Management of Risk
The principal risk is failure to attract sufficient grant funding to fulfil our purposes. As we have no salary costs, nor other significant non-project related costs, there is great flexibility in the level of project work each year and the trustees do not consider there to be any significant risks associated with the operation of the charity.
Thanks
Thanks, must be extended to our trustees, members and other volunteers for their efforts and involvement over the year and to Mike Hill for his design services.
The annual report was approved by the trustees of the charity on 16[th] March 2026 and signed on its behalf by
…………………………………………
Dr T M Acreman
Trustee
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Wild About Clifford
Statement of Financial Activities for Year Ended 31 December 2025
All the charity funds are unrestricted and derived from continuing operations. The notes on pages 12 and 13 form an integral part of these financial statements.
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Wild About Clifford (Registration No. 1184830)
Balance Sheet as at 31 December 2025
The financial statements above were approved by the trustees and authorised for issue on 16[th] March 2026 and signed on their behalf by
Dr T M Acreman
Trustee
Wild About Clifford
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Notes to the Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31 December 2025
Accounting policies
Statement of compliance
The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019 - (Charities SORP (FRS 102)), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Charities Act 2011.
Basis of preparation
Wild About Clifford meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102. The accounts (financial statements) have been prepared under the historical cost convention with items recognised at cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant note(s) to these accounts.
Going concern
The trustees consider that there are no material uncertainties about the charity's ability to continue as a going concern.
Income and endowments
Income
Income is recognised in the Statement of Financial Activities (SoFA) when the charity becomes entitled to the resources, it is more likely than not that the trustees will receive the resources, and the monetary value can be measured with sufficient reliability.
Grants and donations
Grants and donations are only included in the SoFA when the general income recognition criteria are met.
Investment income
Interest on funds held on deposit is included when receivable and the amount can be measured reliably by the charity; this is normally upon notification of the interest paid or payable by the bank.
Wild About Clifford
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Notes to the Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31 December 2025 ( cont )
Expenditure
All expenditure is recognised once there is a legal or constructive obligation to that expenditure, it is probable settlement is required, and the amount can be measured reliably. All costs are allocated to the applicable expenditure heading that aggregate similar costs to that category. Other includes support costs necessary for the running of the charity.
Charitable activities
Charitable expenditure comprises those costs incurred by the charity in the delivery of its activities and services for its beneficiaries. It includes both costs that can be allocated directly to such activities and those costs of an indirect nature necessary to support them. All expenditures in 2025 and 2024 were in support of charitable activities. The charity has no employees.
Taxation
The charity is considered to pass the tests set out in Paragraph 1 Schedule 6 of the Finance Act 2010 and therefore it meets the definition of a charitable company for UK corporation tax purposes. Accordingly, the charity is potentially exempt from taxation in respect of income or capital gains received within categories covered by Chapter 3 Part 11 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 or Section 256 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, to the extent that such income or gains are applied exclusively to charitable purposes.
Cash and cash equivalents
Cash and cash equivalents comprise cash on hand and at bank and other short-term highly liquid investments that are readily convertible to a known amount of cash and are subject to an insignificant risk of change in value.
Fund structure
Unrestricted income funds are general funds that are available for use at the trustees discretion in furtherance of the objectives of the charity. Designated funds are unrestricted funds set aside for specific purposes at the discretion of the trustees.
The charity currently has no restricted funds. An amount of £17,000 is included within unrestricted funds which is designated towards five-year plan activities.
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