Another Word Salad from the Council
Amazing photos by Brian Secrett
Dear Friend,
Here is the Council’s Response to our Pre-Action Judicial Review letter - another word salad. We are taking further legal advice from our lawyers, Russell Cooke but, the letter is much as we expected because we have seen no transparency from the Council to date and no acknowledgement of the bias and pre-determination demonstrated ahead of the Council’s Finance Policy and Resources Committee meeting on 25 June 2025 (when the decision was “officially” made to award the lease of Pensford Field to Dose of Nature).
The Council’s Response quotes extensively from a Council report that went to the Director’s Board on 4 July 2024 and later to a meeting of the Council Service Chairs on 19 July 2024. These are secret squirrel meetings of the Council that are informal and apparently papers that go to them are as tricky to access as the Epstein files. Both these meetings were referred to in the decision to terminate our lease taken by a Council officer on 6 September 2024 who stated that both boards agreed that the decision should be implemented under delegated powers.
One of our Trustees make a Freedom of Information Request (FOIR) to see these papers on 18 March 2025, a few days after we were finally sent a copy of the decision which we had been requesting since October 2024. Until that point, we had consistently been told that the decision to award a lease to Dose of Nature had already been made so it was a surprise to find that the decision only related to the termination of our lease. The FOIR was refused by the Council on the basis that these were internal communications withheld to create a safe space for full and frank discussions as the termination notice had not yet expired and negotiations with Dose of Nature were still ongoing. This matter has now been referred to the Information Commissioner. There will come a point when the Council will have to disclose the report since the decision to award a lease to Dose of Nature was made at the Council Committee on 25 June 2025 and our lease expires in September. So the grounds for withholding are rapidly evaporating.
We have, however, now been offered a copy of this report but on conditions. In paragraph 41 of the Council’s Response, we may get to see this report but you most probably won’t. We are being offered it on the basis that “this will be disclosed strictly on a confidential basis, solely for the purpose of the intended Judicial review proceedings…..” We are reluctantly accepting this. But really? Does this show any commitment to transparency and local democracy? This report determined the future of Pensford Field and had it been submitted to a formal Council meeting, it would have been freely available.
So what is the Council wanting to hide from the public in this report? We really have no idea. However, in paragraph 9 of the Response, it says that the report proposed that if there was no room for compromise with the Pensford Field Environmental Trust, then the Lease would be terminated. Was someone in the Council supposed to contact us to negotiate increased access for Dose of Nature but never did? It has always been a complete mystery to us that no attempt was made by the Council to broker an arrangement. At our first meeting with the Council on 5 September 2024 (when we were told our lease would be terminated), we were also advised that a named official had been in touch with us but we had not heard from him at all.
Anyway, nothing in this whole saga adds up. Why did the Leader of the Council, Cllr Gareth Roberts, want to bulldoze this through without proper consultation after his meetings with the Chair of Dose of Nature, Sir Mark Rowley (the Metropolitan Police Commissioner) in early 2024? What does Dose of Nature achieve by proceeding with this in the face of such serious local community opposition if they only intend to see 4 extra people a week and building structures in the field is no longer a priority (as their representatives said at the Council Committee meeting on 25 June 2025).? Surely the fact that both the Leader, Cllr Gareth Roberts, and the Deputy Leader, Cllr Jim Millard, recused themselves from the Council Committee on 25 June 2025 because of past statements (indicating that the decision to award the lease to Dose of Nature had already been made) is a pretty clear indication of bias? Is there any Lib-Dem councillor bold enough to step out of the party line notwithstanding the fact the Kew Ward local Lib-Dem party has fallen apart at the seams over this issue? We will continue to seek answers to these questions and hopefully the truth will out in the end!
In the meantime, we have no choice but to prepare for the end of our lease on 29 September 2025. We will of course consider next steps when we receive the legal advice and have seen the documents that the Council is duty bound to disclose.
We have decided to cancel our last two work days in August and September as the field will remain in good shape until the end of our lease. If you have not yet cancelled your standing order, please do but bear in mind that every member of the public has the right to enter the field now and into the future. The current code to the passenger gate is C2845X.
Thank you for all your messages of support and I hope that the Council lives up to its promises so that you can continue to enjoy Pensford Field in the future.
Kind Regards,
Sarah
Sarah Atkins
Chair Pensford Field Environmental Trust Ltd
