Money is tight for League Against Cruel Sports
The League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) is set to return a £66k deficit in 2011, despite ploughing in £730,592 raised from selling offland, papers leaked to H&H show.
And the cash-strapped organisation plans to dispose of a further £1.23m-worth of land in 2012.
The land sell-off is a highly controversial move said Tim Bonner of the Hunting Office.
In the leaked financial papers, that were presented to its board of trustees in the summer, LACS was forecast to make a £796,414 loss in 2011 before the £730,592 raised from selling land goes into the bank, dropping the deficit to £66,822.
LACS narrowly escaped a loss in 2010 by selling more land reserves, accounts recently lodged with the Charity Commission show.
If it had not sold £286,441 of property over the year it would have been in the red by £137,052. Instead it showed a balance of £149,389.
LACS spokesman Louise Robertson said: “The land sale is not new. The original purpose was to stop hunting on pockets of land [across the West Country].
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That is no longer necessary and we need to look at our assets.”
She said the sporting rights on the land would not be sold, meaning it cannot be used for hunting or shooting.
This news story was first published in the current issue of H&H (8 December 2011)
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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.