Unacceptable to take another charity's assets

I see that Mr Le Corney has been on many local committees as well as a director at Heeley City Farm. As the Farm is a registered charity, I would have assumed he would be familiar with the Charities Act.

As Margaret Bell and Elaine Brammer point out, Graves Park does not belong to Sheffield City Council. The land is held in charitable trust for the people of Sheffield by the Graves Park Charity.

Under the Charities Act it is a requirement of trustees to act in the best interests of the charity that they represent. It is difficult to see how a charity whose object is “For the recreation of the public as public walks or pleasure grounds or as an open space within the meaning of the Open Spaces Act, 1906” would be best served by having its land disposed of, especially if it is not to obtain full value in return.

Of course it is also illegal for one charity to make donations to another unless in direct support of the donor charities object. As the Graves Park Charity was not set up to support anything other than the provision of parkland, its land cannot be used for any other purpose.

It is rather surprising that the trustees of St Luke's Hospice, also a registered charity, seem to be unaware of this, and continue to waste their resources on the pursuit of this plot of land. It seems that the great attraction is that they expect to get the land for free.

They seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to take over the assets of another charity contrary to the requirements of the Act. I just wonder how they would react if Oxfam or Save the Children asked to take over their old building...free of course.

Vanessa Charlton, Sefton House, Sheffield 11