Friends of Putney Common respond to WPCC 'September update'

In response to the "September 2016 update" just issued by the Wimbledon and Putney Commons Conservators, local group Friends of Putney Common have issued the following statement:

1) The board is being advised by Charles Russell Speechly and have spent considerable sums with them since they were appointed in April. But despite this they have made no progress in following the formal plan put in place by the Charity Commission in October 2015. Eleven months later they have now agreed to a further expenditure of £26,000 to select a chartered surveyor to duplicate the retrospective Qualified Surveyors Report (QSR) provided by Marcus Evans LLP in September 2015 but none of this expenditure is mentioned in the WPCC statement.

2) A loss of £1.55m was confirmed in the retrospective QSR they already have and paid for in August this year. Montagu Evans LLP have agreed to review this in the light of any further information provided by the charity. The cost of such a review would be minimal. The Montagu Evans retrospective QSR has never been discussed by the board and was not on the Agenda at the "special board meeting" on 30th August. The statement in the press statement is therefore misleading and untrue.

3) The Chairman said in her 22 June statement that a new valuation would be available "in a few weeks". Why haven't they made any progress since then, or accepted the QSR they already have, subject to review?

4) Neither the instructions to the QC they mention nor the opinion saying that "there is no requirement for a Qualified Surveyors Report" have been made available. It is a surprising legal opinion and open to challenge. Prior to the sale agreed in February 2012 the Charity Commission instructed the charity to follow the relevant sections of the Charities Act and was assured that the WPCC had done so. A clause to that effect was inserted into the deed of easement signed in August 2014 with Wandsworth Council. Simon Lee wrote again to the Charity Commission in January 2015 reconfirming they had done so. Again, this was misleading and untrue.

5) If a "successful firm" is appointed in early October the cost of getting yet another QSR will be in the region of £30,000, on top of CSR's £26,000 for enabling WPCC to "procure a surveyor from a list of three". The report itself will not be available for some months. The "five point plan" dictated by the Charity Commission was received by the charity almost a year ago.

6) All decisions are being taken by a "majority of the board" consisting of the three appointed Trustees Ian Andrews, Ros Taylor and Derek Frampton who would be suspended if a loss was acknowledged, as instructed in the Commission's plan, also Keith Luck (an ex colleague of Ian Andrews in the senior civil service) and the Chairman Prue Whyte.

7) The petition arranged by FofPC calls for Prue Whyte to take action now. Not spend a further £60,000 on an unnecessary QSR.

Nick Evans
for Friends of Putney Common
tinyurl.com/changepetitionWPCC

September 7, 2016