Closing the Gates, with Heavy Hearts

Dear Friend,

With great sadness, we have decided to wind up the Pensford Field Environmental Trust Ltd following the premature termination of our lease by the Council on 29 September 2025. We have already distributed our physical assets to various environmental and local charities and the cash we have left over (once we have paid our debts), will be allocated between four charities:

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, for its project: Planting for the Future: Kew’s Landscape Succession Plan
Habitats and Heritage for community volunteering days on Kew Road Ha-ha
Barnes Common towards a role encouraging Lifelong Learning
Holly Lodge for a raised bed in their kitchen garden in Richmond Park.

The last two organisations have strong links with schools in Kew which we hope they will develop.

As many of you know, we investigated seeking a judicial review of the Council’s decisions and had reasonable prospects of success. After weeks of refusing to disclose documents to help us assess our chances of success, the Council finally produced them, but we are not permitted to share them with you. The Council has unlimited resources, and we would have needed tens of thousands to keep going so, we reluctantly decided to call it a day.

The deadline for requesting a judicial review has now passed and we handed back the keys to the studio on Monday 29 September - with heavy hearts but heads held high as the field looks wonderful and has won awards this year from London in Bloom and Green Flag.

We will never know why the Council did not consult properly before doing any of this. We will never know why the Leader of the Council did not meet us before triggering the termination of our lease to see if there was scope for compromise (as we understand that this had been the intention). We will never know why the Council did not check statements provided by Dose of Nature which we regard as misleading and what grounds certain councillors had for traducing us as intransigent when there had been no contact with us whatsoever.

It is true to say we would not have compromised over the construction of shelters in the field (although there would have been scope on other issues). Several requests were made to us by Dose of Nature for very large shelters. In the future, planning permission will be needed but we understand there is some support for shelters from senior officials in the Council so this remains a risk.

What we do know is that in order to bulldoze this through, the Council committed a truckload of procedural irregularities, one of which is described in the video from independent film maker, Martin Baker - Battle for Pensford Field (Part 7).

For a third of a century, the community has kept this field predominantly for wildlife and we are handing over the baton to all of you to make sure that this remains the case for the next third of a century. Please keep using the field as it should remain open to the public and, if anything is wrong, then report it to the Council. This field belongs to the local community that has nurtured it for 33 years and whilst Councillors come and go, Pensford Field must remain a haven for wildlife.

We cannot thank you enough for your amazing support over the years but particularly over the past year.

Kind Regards,

Sarah

Sarah Atkins

Chair Pensford Field Environmental Trust Ltd

PS Don’t forget to cancel your standing orders as we cannot do this for you.