Current Position with Council
Heron waiting for the Council’s next move!
Dear Friends,
Here is an update of where things currently stand on the termination of our lease. Sorry it is so long but there have been so many twists and turns to this saga.
Tripartite discussions Following a tripartite meeting with the Council, Dose of Nature and ourselves on 6 March, we wrote to the Council on 14 March asking for more information about the future arrangements. On 2 April, we received a reply which provided no more information about what provisions would be in the lease, the proposed management plan and how Dose of Nature would facilitate access for schools, nurseries and local residents. We have been promised more information in the future but the Council is taking its time..
Decision to award lease not yet made As we explained in our mailing of 20 March, we were stunned to be told indirectly on 12 March that the Council had not yet made a decision to award a lease of Pensford Field to Dose of Nature, notwithstanding the fact that it has been repeatedly said at Council meetings and in correspondence that the decision had already been made. We have also seen an email from the Council’s Head of Governance dated 12 March saying rather cryptically that the grant of the lease will “follow due process” and is being worked through at the moment.
So what is going on? We think the Council is finally accepting that it cannot grant the lease to Dose of Nature without advertising its intentions and inviting objections under Section 123 (2A) of the Local Government Act 1972. This is an issue we first raised with the Council in a formal complaint dated 16 October 2024 (which is now being considered by the Local Government Ombudsman). The problem the Council will now face is how can it genuinely consider objections when it has so clearly made up its mind in public and took pre-emptive action to terminate our lease last September? The Council is supposed to maintain an open mind when considering objections.
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests Two requests made by Trustees for information held by the Council in the period prior to September 2024 and relating to the decision making process have been rejected and In both instances, the Council used the reason that internal communications are protected on public interest grounds because a decision has not yet been made to award a new lease meaning a safe space is needed whilst negotiations are ongoing with Dose of Nature over the lease. These refusals have both been referred to the Information Commissioner as this information, which is now over 6 months old, cannot be relevant to discussions over the terms of the new lease, which we were told in April 2025, had not yet been drafted. The Council cannot rely on safe space arguments when it has consistently portrayed the decision as a fait accompli at every Council meeting between 1 October 2024 and 4 March 2025.
At the Community Conversation with councillors on 2 April, we asked a question about why councillors were not being transparent as non-disclosure simply fuels the suspicion there is something to hide. Cllr Alexander Ehmann said that requests were dealt with by professional officials who simply applied the law and implied that councillors were not at all involved. No public body in the country works on this basis - the officers or elected representatives affected by disclosure are always involved in the decision-making process and a public body can choose to disclose even if it has grounds to withhold.
Non-exhaustive searches by the Council But this is not the only time Councillors have made statements that suit the moment but turn out to be an overstatement of the position. At the Council meeting on 1 October 2024, Cllr Gareth Roberts said that: “There was an exhaustive search which they [Dose of Nature] conducted themselves, and council officers did as well to try to find somewhere alternative. We looked at our own sites, we also looked at third party sites, private sites, Kew Gardens, Royal Parks. These were all looked at. So unfortunately, none of the sites which were available matched up to the requirements needed.”
When a FOI question was asked of the Royal Parks by a supporter as to whether they had been approached by the Council or Dose of Nature to seek a home, this was their reply dated 20 March. They say they had not heard from the Council or Dose of Nature.
When the same supporter received a response to his FOI from the Council about what sites the Council had looked at, he received the following response. Other sites discussed with Dose of Nature were Grimwood and the former Air Training Corp building. This does not amount to an exhaustive search by the Council (although we understand Dose of Nature made extensive enquiries).
Letter to the Leader from the Greens. In our last email, we attached a copy of the letter dated 11 April written by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Green Party), Chas Warlow, to the Leader of the Council posing the following pertinent questions. We very much look forward to seeing straight replies to them:
“1. Why were no minutes taken at the meeting with Sir Mark Rowley, and possibly, other trustees of Dose on Nature on 14 March 2024?
2. Why was it so pressing to transfer the lease to Dose of Nature, rather than wait till it ended in March 2028?
3. Why couldn’t a reasonable discussion have taken place between Dose of Nature and PFET to enable both parties to continue to use the Pensford Field and facilities?
4. Why is this Administration refusing to disclose relevant information transparently and in a timely fashion?
5. Why was this decision made at director level rather than at a Service Committee, given that it affects more than one ward?
6. Why were the trustees of Pensford Field told that the decision to award the lease to Dose of Nature had already been made?
7. When will the decision to award the lease to Dose of Nature be formally taken, how will it be made, and which service committee will scrutinise it?”
Unintended Consequences? This is a sorry tale indeed. The Council terminated our lease early (after 33 years of the field being nurtured by the community) without working out the legal process for awarding a lease to Dose of Nature and without, apparently, making any real effort to find alternative sites. They are relying on spurious reasons to withhold information as previous FOI disclosures have been damaging to the Council. Without a FOI response, we would not have known about the meeting between the Leader, Cllr Gareth Roberts, and Sir Mark Rowley, the Chair of Dose of Nature, in March 2024 which has has cast doubt on many of the statements made by the Leader at Council meetings from October onwards about the urgent need for action and the lack of time for consultation.
Dose of Nature will gain 2 extra weekdays in the studio and field but will have to pay maintenance costs and, we understand, a market rent under the new lease that might be as much as £20,000 a year (they currently pay £6000 to us which is roughly equivalent to our maintenance costs and far below market rates). Also, because the field is equivalent to green belt, we understand they are unlikely to get planning permission to build structures in the field (which we understand is fundamental to them and one of the reasons they gave for seeking early termination of our lease after failing to gain our support for erecting structures in the field on several occasions).
This issue has also created a schism within the local Lib Dem party. Since their AGM in January 2025, we understand local Lib Dem activities in Kew have almost ground to a halt in protest over the Council’s and the Leader’s undemocratic handling of this issue and the Leader’s refusal to undertake formal consultation (more on this in a forthcoming video by independent film maker, Martin Baker). The Council’s reputation in Kew has, in the words of Sarah Olney, Lib Dem MP for Richmond Park, “been severely damaged by this debacle” - we could not agree with her more.
Kind Regards,
Sarah
Sarah Atkins
Chair of Pensford Field Environmental Trust
