Conservators say they delayed release of valuation under 'legal guidance'

Putney Common - Andrew Wilson @andrewpics

The Wimbledon & Putney Commons Conservators (WPCC) have released the long awaited Retrospective Valuation Report (RVR) in respect of the Easement granted to the Wandsworth Council, for access rights over Putney Common. The grant was to enable development of a primary school and apartments within Putney Lower Common.

The information was published this Thursday (16 November) in accordance with the requirements of the Statutory Inquiry by the Charity Commission in relation to the sale.

The Daniel Watney RVR concluded that there had been a loss to the Charity of around £325,000. The Conservators say they have sought and fully considered independent legal advice on the implications arising from the RVR, as required by the Charity Commission’s Formal Action Plan.

At their scheduled meeting on the 8 February 2017, the Board concluded that, in their view, the Wimbledon and Putney Commons Conservators had now completed the implementation of the Charity Commission’s Formal Action Plan.

In late May 2017 the Charity Commission confirmed that it had appointed an Interim Manager with the specific brief to consider the decision by the trustees not to take legal action to recover the loss suffered by the charity following the granting the easement for which the Council paid £350,000 and to determine whether further action needed to be taken.

The Conservators say they wished to publish this information in June 2017, but were advised by the Interim Manager that it would not be appropriate at that stage for matters which formed the subject of his appointment to find their way into the public domain. They say their lawyers also advised that the disclosure of the requested information would hamper the Interim Manager’s work and therefore have an adverse effect on the result.

During this period former conservator Nick Evans wrote to the Information Commissioner’s Office regarding the decision of the Board to withhold information regarding the instructions to prepare the RVR and the Report prepared by Daniel Watney.

In early October 2017 the Interim Manager advised that he had submitted his draft report to the
Charity Commission and was meeting with them later that month to deal with any queries they
may have. The Board has not to date received a copy of the Interim Manager’s draft report.

On 24 October 2017 the Information Commissioner’s Office issued a Decision Notice
advising that in their view Wimbledon and Putney Commons Conservators is a public authority
for the purposes of EIR and in this case the information requested in ‘environmental’.

The Charity Commission have advised that it has no objection to the release of the documents.
The instructions to prepare a RVR and the Daniel Watney RVR are available on WPCC’s
website. Details of RVR: Retrospective Valuation Report and Instructions for the Preparation of the Retrospective Valuation Report'

Nick Evans, founder of Friends of Putney Common, said, “The Conservators received the Daniel Watney RVR over a year ago. They have only published it now because I obtained a Decision Notice from the Information Commissioner that they should do so. In the instructions given to Daniel Watney the Conservators quote a Counsel’s opinion, obtained after the event, that they did not need to comply with Charity Law when they sold the access rights in 2012. No one has seen this opinion and it has not been tested in law. In the Daniel Watney RVR itself the surveyor’s arguments that their own valuation of £1,350,000 needs to be discounted to £675,000 are highly questionable. Even taking this reduced final figure as definitive, which I do not, the loss of some £325,000 in income to a hard-pressed charity is quite inexcusable. What is more the Conservators have yet to apologise to local residents for this sorry state of affairs.”


November 17, 2017