The Parks Trust held its Annual Public Meeting yesterday (15/7), where the charity published its Annual Report and Financial Statements for 2020-2021.
This year, The Parks Trust hosted their annual public meeting at Campbell Park Pavilion, the Trust’s head office with a live stream of the event on their Facebook channel, which proved to be very popular.
This meeting gave residents and stakeholders the opportunity to find out about what The Parks Trust does as a charity while giving them a platform to give feedback and ask any questions they may have.
David Foster, Chief Executive, opened the meeting and gave an overview of the last year which started with the Board having to agree significant cuts to all expenditure including staff pay and benefits as a precaution.
As the year went on, the loss of income from the charity's property portfolio was not as bad as first expected and with the various government support grants including the furlough scheme the Trust was able to reinstate many of the proposed cuts and deliver on a number of key park improvement projects.
The Charity then launched their MK inspirational landscapes document. Steve Revill-Darton, Green Infrastructure Development Manager at The Trust said "The Parks Trust creates and maintains beautiful and inspirational parks, lakes and landscapes that will be loved by the people of Milton Keynes, forever.
"As Milton Keynes expands, we want to ensure all future areas of the city benefit from the same extent and quality of green space as is found in the established areas of the city. That’s why we’ve created the MK inspirational landscapes document, that details our vision for the future of Milton Keynes and its green spaces."
David Foster also commented “Our events and activities programme are now in full swing in the parks with many fabulous events planned for the summer including the International Festival programme in Campbell Park and at the Tree Cathedral. As well as local schools making the most of the Trust’s outdoor learning opportunities. We are also really pleased to be able to welcome people back to the pavilion this year for our annual public meeting."
The Parks Trust’s annual report shows that they gained an increase of £12.9m in their net assets which brings their total endowment fund to £129.3m.
In addition to this, the charity released two small areas of land for development as well as receiving additional endowments in return for several areas of new greenspace it took on in the past year.
With the Charity being self-financing, their strategy is to grow the asset base to an extent where it can be considered financially sustainable for the long term.
The evening also included an introduction to Chair of The Trust, Zoe Raven, the launch of the Trust’s new landscape proposition by Steve Revill-Darton and Operations Director, Rob Riekie spoke about the Trust’s tree management and an update about National Lottery Heritage Funded project at Great Linford Manor Park by James Cairncross and Ellie Broad.
David Foster also announced that he will be retiring from The Parks Trust in 12 months’ time, having been with the Trust for 19 years.
