Call for probe into charity

Mar 27 2008 by Neil Mckay, The Journal

FINANCIAL watchdogs have been urged to investigate a registered charity tasked with providing facilities for a former steel town after it failed to submit accounts for the past three years.

Project Genesis Trust, of which Derwentside District Council leader Alex Watson, deputy Michael Malone and chief executive Mike Clark are trustees, says it does not need to submit accounts to the charity commissioners because its assets are below the threshold of £10,000.

Yet an agreement drawn up when the Trust was formed in 1994 shows that it was supposed to benefit to the tune of at least £2,813 for each acre of a 700-acre former steelworks site whenever it was sold for development.

The registered charity, Project Genesis Trust, was created to oversee the project and ensure that any surplus funds were used to benefit the people of Derwentside.

Now Owen Temple, a financial adviser and Liberal Democrat member of Derwentside District Council, has requested the authority’s Audit Committee examine the trust’s books.

He has asked the committee to investigate benefits that Project Genesis has brought to the district, and the effectiveness of the Trust in “ensuring that any surplus funds generated are applied to the regeneration of the Derwentside area.”

Coun Temple said: “When land is earmarked for development it is bought by the Trust for a nominal price, say £1, and sold onto Project Genesis Limited for development at a minimum rate of £2,813 per acre.

“The income of the Trust took a dive after 2003. The Charity Commission shows it dropping below the threshold of £10,000 which requires submission of accounts. The same source shows that in six years from 2000 to 2006 the Trust had an income of £97,643. That income equates only to the sale of 35 acres.”

Coun Temple said all Trust meetings were held in private, and that “clear figures on exactly what financial contributions the Trust have made and will make to projects are hard to come by.”

But Coun Watson has defended the role of the charity.

He said: “Hundreds of millions of pounds have gone into Consett and it hasn’t cost the taxpayer a penny.”

He added: “Project Genesis is a public/private partnership agreement which I believe is second to none in the country. It has transformed what was a dying town into a vibrant one, and at no risk to the taxpayer.

“We have new housing at Berry Edge, new retail development, a new bus station, a re-vitalised heritage park, a new £6m college, a new restaurant on the site, a new bypass and a new hotel in the pipeline.

“Retailers now want to invest in Consett and people want to live here because it is a vibrant town.

“I will be happy to explain the figures to Owen Temple.”