Is the League Against Cruel Sports lacking support?
THE popularity of the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) has hit a new low with the news it is still looking for a tenant to share its Godalming HQ, almost a year after moving there from London.
The anti-hunting group sold its properties in Southwark, London (pictured right) and St Nicholas’ Priory at its Baronsdown deer sanctuary on Exmoor last year and moved to Surrey in July (news, 22 May 2008).
Accounts at the 2007 LACS AGM showed a £1million hole in the charity’s coffers and membership stands at just 7,000 this year.
The plan was to buy the Guildford building — New Sparling House in Holloway Hill — and rent out half the space. But the “to let” signs are still there nine months on.
LACS spokesman Louise Robertson said: “We are definitely not moving again or closing down. We own the whole building and it was always our intention to rent out the space we did not need.”
She was unable to comment on whether the society is in talks with any potential lessees.
But the Countryside Alliance feels this is further evidence that LACS is out of public favour.
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“It’s no surprise to us that the league cannot find anyone to share a building with them,” said spokesman Tim Bonner.
This news story was first published in Horse & Hound (28 May, ’09)
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A self-confessed newshound, farmer’s daughter and journalist of many years' experience, Charlotte worked on regional papers before joining H&H in 2007. A regular rider, she visited Ireland in 2010 to investigate the fate of Irish horses through the recession, to much acclaim, and reported from the FEI General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in 2011. She left Horse & Hound in March 2013.