SOUTHAMPTON COMMON FOUNDATION

CONSULTATION PAPER

PREAMBLE

This paper seeks comments on the proposal of the Southampton Common Forum to work
with Southampton City Council to establish a new charitable trust for Southampton
Common provisionally called the Southampton Common Foundation. The paper is being
sent to members of the Forum, our associated organisations and groups, the City Council,
local community groups and the general public.

The deadline for comments is Friday 3rd May 2019.

BACKGROUND

The Southampton Common Forum was set up in early 2017. Its objectives are:

1. To see that all those with an interest are informed of any issues that may affect the
Common
2. To give all those with an interest a means of influencing and contributing to those
issues
3. To work alongside the City Council to contribute to the positive management of the
Common
4. To raise awareness of the Common and its many benefits to the City
5. To take any other appropriate action consistent with the aims of the Forum.

The Forum’s first main task was to learn more about users’ experience of the Common.
Accordingly, the Forum conducted an online survey that elicited nearly 2,200 responses.
This is believed to be a record for this kind of exercise. Details of the survey and other
Forum activities can be found on the Forum’s website
www.southamptoncommonforum.org.

Building on these responses, and further consultation, and working closely with the City
Council, the Forum then developed a new plan for the Common which was approved by the
Council in December 2018:

https://www.southampton.gov.uk/modernGov/documents/s37696/Southampton%20Common%20Plan.pdf

The issue now is how and by whom the plan will be delivered.

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A NEW OPERATING MODEL FOR THE COMMON

The plan sets out an ambitious agenda for the improvement of the Common up to 2030
whilst safeguarding its character as an urban common and open space. Achieving the plan
will require both financial and other resources that are beyond the Council in the present
economic climate, and which would present challenges even at the best of times, bearing in
mind the fact that the maintenance of commons and parks is not a statutory function.

This means that if the Common is not to continue to deteriorate, others have to step up to
the plate, accessing sources such as grants (e.g. lottery money) and corporate and private
donations that are not available to the Council. There is anyway an argument for improving
the governance of the Common as the Forum’s work to date has demonstrated. The Forum
itself cannot take on that role because it has no legal or corporate identity, quite apart from
resources. At the same time, there is no appetite for a wholly independent organisation that
would in effect take over responsibility for the Common from the City Council, and nor is
this being suggested (quite apart from the time that would be needed to set it up).

What the Forum is now proposing, therefore, is to create a new charitable trust to work
with the City Council to help deliver the new plan and generate the additional resources
that are clearly needed if the plan is to succeed. It is proposed that in the first instance the
new trust’s remit will cover just the Common. If it is successful then it might in due course
be rolled out across the City, but that is not what is being proposed here. In effect, the new
trust could be a pilot for a city-wide entity in due course if that is what is decided upon.

It should be noted that the proposal is not a novel one. The Forum is aiming to learn from
the experience of Bournemouth, who in turn have drawn on examples in Milton Keynes and
a number of US cities (some of many years’ standing). We are also aware of the national
debate about how to safeguard and protect our urban parks and open spaces in an age of
austerity. All of these efforts are about trying to find the right balance between public
responsibility and private effort in current circumstances.

The rest of this paper sets out the Forum’s current thinking about the new trust.

PRINCIPLES

The following principles will underpin the establishment of the new trust:

1. There will be no change in the nature of the Common as an urban common and open
space.
2. There will be no change to the legal framework within which the Common is
operated. For example, the existing restrictions on the holding of formal recreational
events would remain.

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 3. The Common will remain in public ownership and will continue to be open and free
for public use. There would be no question of any contracting out of the overall
operation and management of the Common to a commercial entity although certain
specific functions could be contracted out (as is already the case with the catering at
The Hawthorns).
4 The Council will continue to be the owner and manager of the Common (as trustee
for the people of Southampton), and the principal funder. The Council will have the
right to appoint trustees to the new trust board.
5 The new trust board is intended to be broadly representative of users, local
community groups, business, the voluntary sector, and other stakeholders such as
the two universities.
6 The new trust will not fund core services but will be there to provide added value to
existing maintenance and management practices.

ACTIVITIES

It is envisaged that the new trust will:

1. Recruit and mobilise trustees, staff, volunteers and friends who are committed to
the enhancement of the Common, the new plan, and the charity’s aims and
objectives, including trustees who bring a wide range of backgrounds and skills.
2. Be a vehicle for wider, more committed and more fully informed community
engagement with the operation of the Common.
3. Be a conduit for establishing relationships with sponsors and philanthropists
4. Be a means of attracting funding which the Council cannot, including not only public
funds but private funds that those involved might be unwilling to give the Council or
a Council-owned body.
5. Create communication channels to promote the Common, including support with
engagement, fundraising and volunteering opportunities. The Forum’s work will be a
good basis for this with around 900 Facebook ‘friends’ and around 700 email
contacts currently.
6. Provide the Council with an authoritative, independent view on the delivery of the
new plan.

APPOINTMENT OF TRUSTEES

Appointments of trustees will be made by the board of trustees. However the initial
appointments will be made, following this consultation, by the City Council (in the case of up
to two nominated trustees) and by the Forum (for the other trustees).

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RESOURCING

The new trust will develop a business plan so that it can become self-supporting in due
course. It is envisaged that the Council will:

1. Provide accommodation, services and advice to the trust at no or nominal cost.

2. Make an annual grant to the trust to support its ongoing fund-raising, project
management, volunteering and promotional functions.
3. Offer a significant audience for the promotion of the Common including donation
and volunteering opportunities.

FORM OF THE TRUST

It is envisaged that the new trust will be a Charitable Incorporated Organisation under the
Charities Act 2011. This is based on advice from our legal advisers Paris, Smith. Details of
such organisations can be found on the Charity Commission’s website
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission. The draft of a
constitution for the new trust is annexed to this paper.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FORUM

Subject to the outcome of this consultation, and the decision of the Charity Commission, it is
hoped that the Foundation can be established by the beginning of June 2019. However the
new trust will not begin to discharge its functions until the next financial year, from April
2020. The Forum will therefore continue to exist in its present form for at least another
year, and the Management Committee will play a key role in coordinating with the trustee
board and the City Council. In the longer term the Forum could possibly change into a
Common Friends group of the kind that is already familiar in the City (if not on the scale of
the Common). However it is clearly much too soon to be deciding this and further discussion
will be needed.

CONCLUSION

In putting forward the proposals for a new Common trust the Forum’s aim is to build on our
experience, achievements and successes since 2017. We see the establishment of the
foundation as the next stage of our strategy for improving the Common in the interests of
all those who use it and in the interest of the City as a whole. It is obviously much too soon
to say whether this strategy will be successful. We certainly do not underestimate the
challenges of securing additional public and private funding at the present time. But we
believe that creating the new trust is the best way of obtaining the greater resources and
wider Common ‘ownership’ that will be the keys to the successful realisation of the plan.

We would now welcome your views on the proposal.

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Adam Wheeler, Chair Southampton Common Forum

April 2019