Registered number: 00633098 Charity number: 239992 Kent Wildlife Trust (A company limited by guarantee) Trustees' report and consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2017 Kent Wildlife Trust (A company limited by guarantee) Contents Page Reference and administrative details of the charity, its honorary officers and 1 advisers Chairman's statement 2 Trustees' report 3 - 12 Independent auditor's report 13 - 15 Consolidated statement of financial activities 16 Consolidated income and expenditure account 17 Consolidated balance sheet 18 Charity balance sheet 19 Consolidated statement of cash flows 20 Notes to the financial statements 21 - 46 Kent Wildlife Trust (A company limited by guarantee) Reference and administrative details of the charity, its honorary officers and advisers for the year ended 31 December 2017 Honorary officers Michael Bax, Chairman Charles Tassell, Vice Chairman Graham Hill, Honorary Secretary Nigel Steele, Honorary Treasurer Company registered number 00633098 Charity registered number 239992 Registered office Tyland Barn, Sandling, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 3BD Chief executive officer John Bennett Independent auditor Kreston Reeves LLP, Montague Place, Quayside, Chatham Maritime, Chatham, Kent, ME4 4QU Bankers Barclays Bank Plc, 80 High Street, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN13 1LR Solicitors Gullands, 16 Mill Street, Maidstone, Kent, ME16 6XT Investment Managers Sarasin & Partners LLP, Juxon House, 100 St Paul's Churchyard, London, EC4M 8BU Page 1 Kent Wildlife Trust (A company limited by guarantee) Chairman's statement for the year ended 31 December 2017 Chairman’s Introduction 2017 was a dramatic year for Kent Wildlife Trust with important additions to our reserves and important developments in our plans for meeting and working with people. Developments identified in 2015 in our five year strategy began to consolidate, promising new systems to save money and much of this underlined by key staff changes which promises a yet more exciting 2018. Kent Wildlife Trust is a complex community and every part of which contributes to and is key to our sustained achievement. Members, long term and newly enrolled, give us strength, a voice and confidence in the future. Benefactors, Charitable Trusts and Lottery funds help drive new initiatives. Volunteers on nature reserves, in wildlife gardens, lookering, monitoring, on Sea Search and greeting visitors give us a public face and the capacity to reach out yet further to new audiences. Our partners, businesses, farmers, public agencies, by their recognition of the contribution Kent Wildlife Trust can make to their work and the County give our work a wider, economic validation. The staff and Trustees sit at the heart of this huge community providing direction and a common face. During the year Kent Wildlife Trust and I were actively challenged in a social media campaign. The Campaign has caused us to examine carefully our policies drawing on the diverse views from members and other parts of our audience and the nature of the national conversation and as a result recommitted ourselves to the policy of neutrality. As 2017 leads to 2018 it is clear that we are moving into an exciting and positive time. The Government is paying more attention to its environmental responsibilities than it has for many years The Chief Executive for 20 years, John Bennett, is leaving and there are other important staff changes that will prepare Kent Wildlife Trust for the future. Thank you all for joining me as part of the rich community which is Kent Wildlife Trust. Name Michael Bax Chairman Date Page 2 Kent Wildlife Trust (A company limited by guarantee) Trustees' report for the year ended 31 December 2017 The Council of Management (Board of Trustees) presents its report and the audited financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2017. The Message from the chairman set out in the previous pages forms part of this report. The financial statements comply with the current statutory requirements, the Memorandum and Articles of Association and the Statement of Recommended Practice – Accounting and Reporting by Charities. Status The organisation is a charitable company limited by guarantee, incorporated on 21 July 1959 and registered as a charity on 1 January 1961. Governing document The organisation was established under a Memorandum of Association which establishes the objects and powers of the organisation and is governed under its Articles of Association. AIMS, ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS In 2017 we progressed our BIG vision towards ensuring that by 2035, 30% of Kent and Medway – land and sea – is managed to create a healthy place for wildlife to flourish. As we enter the latter stages of our current strategy, this review outlines some of our achievements during 2017 towards our ambitions. Six key Strategic Objectives have been guiding our work: 1. Protecting and restoring biodiversity 2. Maintaining the land and sea that we already manage and influence 3. Increasing the area on land and at sea we manage and/or successfully influence 4. Positioning Kent Wildlife Trust as a key driver playing a critical role in responding to economic, societal and environmental challenges facing Kent 5. Maintain, develop and invest in existing and additional sources of income 6. Develop a compelling lifelong engagement with the Trust amongst families, communities, organisations and decision makers with a clear cut progression route from passive engagement to ambassadorial roles Our Big Vision of 30% of land and sea under good conservation management is both grand and necessary. It will ensure we meet the guiding principles of our vision for living landscapes and living seas of bigger, better and more joined up habitats for wildlife. It will reconnect people with their natural environment providing places for both people and wildlife to flourish. With the active support of a range of organisations, partners and stakeholders this becomes a realistic and achievable target. Currently designated areas (Ramsar sites, Special Areas of Conservation, Special Protected Areas, National Nature Reserves, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Local Nature Reserves) and nature reserves and woodland occupy 16% of the land area of Kent and Medway. The Trust’s engagement with partners in the wider countryside brings this to approximately 17% and provides the robust starting point from which we will work with partners to secure the rest of the vision. 1 Protect and restore biodiversity, translating strategy and policy to action Our work to monitor and understand the impact of our conservation work across the wider landscape continues to grow in strength. This is led by a new monitoring strategy implemented in 2016/17 which has now completed ecological monitoring work in nine landscape areas and 28 reserves. Page 3 Kent Wildlife Trust (A company limited by guarantee) Trustees' report (continued) for the year ended 31 December 2017 The Fifth Continent Landscape Partnership project is leading a Monitoring on the Marsh project, delivering species and habitat monitoring across Romney Marsh, training new volunteers in identification and surveying skills. The Riversearch citizen science monitoring project continues to grow along the River Eden, with 30 trained volunteers, and will soon be rolled out onto other rivers in Kent. Kent Wildlife Trust continues to monitor the condition of Kent’s 467 Local Wildlife Sites. Only 43% of these were classified as being in conservation management, highlighting the threat to wildlife sites from lack of management. Together with the continuing pressure on housing allocation in national planning policy, the majority of Kent’s Local Plans still do not include protection for Local Wildlife Sites in policy wording. In addition to training sessions, Kent Wildlife Trust has worked closely with Kent Nature Partnership to provide support specific to planning staff at each of the local authorities to demonstrate how wildlife sites and networks can be incorporated into planning policy. The emphasis placed on development in planning grows ever stronger. Kent Wildlife Trust is successfully getting a mention of wildlife in planning decisions as grounds for a refusal or conditions set for wildlife protection. The planning team has reviewed 422 planning applications in 2017, commenting on 108 and submitting objections to 52. Kent Wildlife Trust continues to gather survey data to support designation and appropriate management of Marine Conservation Zones and their protected features. There were 13 Shoresearch and 14 Seasearch (dive) activities in 2017. We have had input to discussions and consultations on management of fisheries in Margate and Long Sands Special Area for Conservation (SAC). We also responded to consultations on extensions to existing Special Protected Areas (SPAs). We have worked with developers and regulators on proposals which could damage existing or recommended Marine Protected Areas. The Living Landscapes team continue to deliver highly successful landscape scale projects. This includes our participation in the Making a Buzz project led by Bumblebee Conservation Trust where we are leading projects to deliver 15 new road verges in management for rare bees in North Kent. 2 Maintain the land and sea that we already manage and influence In 2017 we influenced the management and protection of 1,924ha of new land and 97,128ha of sea, once again significantly exceeding our annual target. Kent Wildlife Trust owned and managed 69 nature reserves, a combined land area of 3,327 ha