2025-06-14-accounts - Flight Free UK

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Flight Free UK annual report 2024/25 financial year

Reference and administrative details

Charity name: Flight Free UK Charity registration number: 1199328 Charity registered address: 125 High Oak Road, Ware, SG12 7PA

Structure, governance and management

Flight Free UK is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation whose only voting members are its charity trustees. The constitution was adopted on 15th June 2022.

Trustees:

James Frecknall (Chair) Maggie Robertson (deputy Chair) Steve Westlake Lenny Sayers

Staff:

Anna Hughes (Director) Harrie Baxeter (Comms Officer) Joy Kimberlee (Fundraising Officer)

Staff members work part-time on a self-employed basis.

The Flight Free UK team includes up to 10 part-time volunteer interns each giving 8 hours per week. Interns stay for an average of 6 months and learn about communications and design. In this financial year there were 11 interns in total. After volunteering with Flight Free UK, interns go on to find jobs in the sustainability or charity sector, and many say that the skills they learned while at Flight Free UK helped them to get a job.

Three volunteers joined the events team to help with the Penguin Ball fundraising event.

Objectives and activities

The purpose of the charity is to encourage people to travel without flying, by educating the public about the climate impact of aviation, and giving information and inspiration for travel by other means. This is carried out for the public benefit with the aim of helping to mitigate the harmful effects of greenhouse gas emissions upon the environment.

The charitable purposes are carried out through public events, social media, written articles, podcast and video content, and interviews in the media including written media, TV and radio.

The charity trustees comply with the duty in section 4 of the 2006 Act to have due regard to guidance on public benefit published by the Commission.

The main objectives for the year are:

to increase public awareness about the climate impact of aviation
to change people’s travel habits with the Flight Free Challenge
to influence government policy

The strategies for achieving these objectives are:

regular high-quality shareable posts on social media
holding a programme of educational and inspirational events, both online and in locations across the UK
the Flight Free Challenge: one year off flying, to reduce emissions, break a habit and try the alternatives
responding to consultations
running Parliamentary Petitions
promoting the idea of flight-free travel in mainstream news outlets and on TV and radio
advertising in magazines

Significant activities undertaken during the financial year:

16 public information talks given to groups around the UK including at green fairs and universities
5 public information stalls held at public fairs and events
expert contributions to panel events on 4 occasions
appearances on the BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze, BBC Scotland, GB News and LBC
two online public information events on the climate impact of aviation, four online public events giving information and inspiration for flight-free travel, and two in-person public information events in Birmingham and Exeter
attendance and speeches at protests against London City Airport and at the Royal Courts of Justice
two Parliamentary petitions, to ban domestic flights and to stop airport expansion

Achievements and performance

Achievements:

over 2,000 people pledging to go flight-free for the year
25,000+ followers and over 1million views of content on social media
3,500 people attending events
6,000 signatures on the petition to stop airport expansion

A financial review

Balance at the end of the period = £44,119 Income = £62,055 Expenditure = £34,270

The charity holds no reserves because overheads are low and income is modest. All income is allocated to be spent on staff hours or operational costs. The charity will start to hold reserves when income increases significantly.

The charity’s principal source of income is from supporter donations. About half of this comes from regular, monthly donations, and half comes from the annual fundraising appeal.

A substantial sum from a private donor was received this financial year, to be used to fund staff hours.

A limited amount of income comes from grants.

Major financial risks are identified in the Risk Register and reviewed annually.

Plans for future periods

The Flight Free Challenge runs every year, and each year the aim is to Increase the overall number of people who sign up. This aim is achieved in part by an increase in the number of people engaging with social media content and the events programme. A high level strategy is to engage with travel influencers to take part in the Flight Free Challenge.

Establishing a regular large-scale event, the Night of Flight-Free Adventure, will help to raise the profile of the charity and the issue. This event is a fundraiser as well as awareness raiser.

Plans to help inspire a culture shift include the Flight Free Schools programme, which will launch in September 2026 and aims to engage an increasing number of schools each year. Flight Free Schools helps schools to reduce or remove the use of air travel for school trips.

The charity is exploring more ways to get discussion of aviation industry greenwash into the mainstream.

Information on fundraising practices

A fundraiser was employed by the charity on a part-time basis for the first 8 months of the year. The fundraiser’s role was to:

find and apply for grant funding
expand the number of regular donors
manage the annual fundraising event administrate the annual public fundraising appeal

All other fundraising is undertaken by the team. Fundraising activities take place online, with one in-person fundraising event per year, which raises money through ticket sales. There is no on-street fundraising or unsolicited communications with the aim of raising funds.

The charity is not part of a fundraising regulation scheme, but has received no complaints about its fundraising activity.

Declarations

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees

Signature Full name James Frecknall Position Chair Date 10/12/2025

	Charity Name	Charity Name	Charity Name	No(if any)	CC16a

	Receipts andpayments accounts
	For the period from	Period start date	To	Period end date
		15 June 2024		14 June 2025

Section A Receipts and payments
	Unrestricted funds	Restricted funds	Endowment funds	Total funds	Last year
	to the nearest £	to the nearest £	to the nearest £	to the nearest £	to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
Fundraising	26,621	-	-	26,621	24,849
Gift Aid	- 0	-	-	-	3,251
Grants	32,692	-	-	32,692	2,000
Partnerships	2,600	-	-	2,600	310
Interest	141	-	-	141	17
	- 0	-	-	-	-
	- 0	-	-	-	-
	- 0	-	-	-	-
*Sub total*_(Gross income for AR) _	62,055	-	-	62,055	30,427

A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table).
	- 0	- 0	- 0	-
	- 0	- 0	- 0	-	- 0
*Sub total*	- 0	- 0	- 0	-	- 0

**Total receipts **	62,055	- 0	- 0	62,055	30,427

A3 Payments
Staff hours	22,015	-	-	22,015	12,399
Technology (including website)	2,729	-	-	2,729
Promotional materials and postage	2,177	-	-	2,177
Travel and subsistence	2,007	-	-	2,007	-
Administration and subscriptions	5,343	-	-	5,343
	- 0	-	-	-	-
Campaign Expenditure	- 0	-	-	-	3,114
Administration		-	-	-	781
	- 0	-	-	-	-
**Sub total **	34,270	-	-	34,270	16,294

A4 Asset and investment purchases,(see table)
	- 0	- 0	- 0	-
	- 0	- 0	- 0	-
**Sub total **	- 0	- 0	- 0	-	- 0

**Totalpayments **	34,270	- 0	- 0	34,270	16,294

**Net of receipts/(payments) **	27,785	-	-	27,785	14,133
A5 Transfers between funds	- 0	-	-	-	-
A6 Cash funds lastyear end	16,335	-	-	16,335	2,201
**Cash funds thisyear end **	44,119	-	-	44,119	16,335


Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the				period
Categories	Details		Unrestricted funds	Restricted funds	Endowment funds
			to nearest £	to nearest £	to nearest £
B1 Cash funds	Cash in bank account		44,119	-	-
			-	-	-

CCXX R1 accounts (SS)

27/11/2025

		-	-	-
	*Total cash funds*	44,119	-	-
	(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))	OK		OK
		Unrestricted funds	Restricted funds	Endowment funds
	Details	to nearest £	to nearest £	to nearest £
B2 Other monetary assets		-	-	-
		-	-	-
		-	-	-
		-	-	-
		-	-	-
		-	-	-

	Details	Fund to which asset belongs	Cost (optional)	Current value (optional)
B3 Investment assets			-	-
			-	-
			-	-
			-	-
			-	-

	Details	Fund to which asset belongs	Cost (optional)	Current value (optional)
B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use			-	-
			-	-
			-	-
			-	-
			-	-
			-	-
			-	-
			-	-
			-	-

	Details	Fund to which liability relates	Amount due (optional)	When due (optional)
B5 Liabilities			-
			-
			-
			-
			-

Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees	Signature	Print Name		Date of approval
		Ms Margaret Robertson		8 December 2024

CCXX R2 accounts (SS)

27/11/2025

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ Charity Name members of FLIGHT FREE UK On accounts for the year 14/06/2025 Charity no 1199328 ended (if any) Set out on pages (remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 14 / 06 / 2025 .

Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of basis of report the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention (other than that disclosed below *) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
the accounts do not accord with the accounting records

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply.

Date: 09/01/2026

Signed: Name: Joshua Hill

October 2018

IER

Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any):

ICAEW (ACA)

Address: 10 Grange Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR23NH

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

October 2018

IER

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

October 2018

IER