We were shocked to learn that…

The Malvern Hills Parliamentary Bill was submitted on 27 November 2024 despite a lack of genuine engagement with stakeholders, the primary ones being the Levy Payers.

• No-one had seen the Bill prior to its submission.

• The results of the Consultation (and in the 2019 Consultation) were largely ignored, with the evidence having been systematically and deliberately misrepresented by the Trust

• The Consultation responses in 2024 and 2019 were analysed in-house by several Trustees

• The Consultation was not even on the draft Bill

• 87 responses were eliminated without adequate explanation

• The concerns expressed over the Bill by MH District Council and Malvern Town Council have been ignored.

Why we were shocked at the Bill’s submission…

because our concerns over the Private Bill have been well known for a long time.

• Members of the public have drawn attention to specific concerns at MHT Meetings over several years

• Letters/emails have been sent to MHT seeking clarification on specific issues

• Our concerns were laid out very clearly at a Public meeting in May 2024 which was attended by several members of MHT including the CEO and Vice Chair.

• They have also been articulated via social media post

  Yet MHT have consistently sought to ‘rubbish’ the concerns of local residents and to present those who oppose the Bill as being in the minority. This is completely contra to the evidence when over 2000 residents signed a petition supporting the concerns raised over the Bill. This was approx 4 times the number who responded to the 2024 Consultation.

  MHT Officers have consistently branded our concerns ‘mis and disinformation’', yet it is quite clear they have read the commentary. It is therefore disingenuous for anyone from MHT to suggest that they are unaware of our very real and genuine concerns over the Bill. They have repeatedly failed to provide any assurance that genuine compromise was possible.

The Malvern Hills Trust is a Public Body as well as a charity by virtue of…

its tax raising powers on the local population.

Yet, they seek to commercialise their operations and remove elected accountability accompanied by a removal of a public asset (our Hills and Commons) into the hands of a privately run, but publicly funded charity and be under no obligation to anyone.

That cannot be allowed to happen.

The Precept payers will be contributing £739 000 for the financial year 2025-2026, not an insignificant sum. This is meant to fund the work on the Hills and Commons but is also being used to fund the Private Bill, a Bill for which our consent was not sought in the first place.

There are the continual above inflation levy increases year on year that the CEO and Trustees deem acceptable.

At the first MHT Meeting 2025, a 6% increase in the levy was voted for when MHDC have committed to a rise of only 2.9% on the Council Tax. So once again MHT are increasing the rate by more than double that of MHDC and more than double the current rate of inflation (2.5%)

There was no justification or evidence presented as to why a 6% increase was required. Trustees were reminded that every 1% increase would bring in an extra £7000 per annum.

The Malvern Hills Trust have consistently used the excuse of the Acts needing modernisation but…..

these Acts have stood the test of time, over 140 years and have served the Malvern Hills and Commons well. It is important to realise that the ambitions of the new Bill do not align with the intentions of the founding Conservators first set up in 1884. This Act (and the others that followed) were quite prescriptive, tightly drawn up so that one specific group could not misuse the powers within it and displays considerable foresight. It is for those reasons that the Acts have successfully stood the test of time. 

In return, the local populous paid for the upkeep of the Hills and Commons.

The powers sought in the proposed Bill are extreme, excessive and are most certainly not needed. They leave the levy paying public paying for an ever increasing area of land to which we will undoubtedly have less access in due course.

A significant cause for concern is the loss of democracy due to ….

the dramatic reduction of the number of Trustees from 29 to 12.

Of these, it is suggested that 6 are ‘so called’ elected and 6 are nominated.

However, it is important to realise that the 6 ‘so-called’ will not really be elected at all. Contrary to the MHT narrative that says Levy Payers will have 50% elected Trustees, that is misleading and plain wrong.

The Wards and Parishes will lose their elected representatives.

All the Levy paying areas of Malvern and non-Levy paying areas of Malvern will be merged and 6 Trustees will be voted for from a single list.

Anyone living in the levy paying area plus a mile can stand for election, though only levy payers can vote

It is quite conceivable that none of those will be Levy payers. Hence taxation without representation which cannot be correct.

If one of those 6 resigns or leaves, they will be replaced by a nominated Trustee, thereby causing an immediate imbalance as the nominated Trustees will then be in the majority.

The process by which nominated Trustees are appointed was not in the Consultation

None of the Nominated Trustees will be from Malvern Hills District Council or Herefordshire Authority, yet they will be expected to collect the Levy

Nominated Trustees cannot be Levy Payers

Gambling with £800 000 + of OUR money

• Failed Charity Scheme £130 000 spent with no tangible benefit.

• Proposed budget for Private Bill £410 000- does not guarantee success

• £306 000 is to be borrowed from a restricted fund ( What happens if legal and Parliamentary Agent costs exceed £306 000?)

• 25-year repayment term @ 6% interest

• Total: c. £600 000

A further £104 000 from general funds is earmarked for:

• additional staffing,

• internal administration,

• public consultation and other costs

• Total cost of Private Bill is already in excess of an eye watering £825 000

Officers have not capped the budget, so cannot guarantee that the costs quoted will ‘get the job done’

Precept payers have already been committed to the above costs without our consent.

“No member of the Public has seen a copy of the draft Bill; this is crucial as it is the detail that matters.”

No member of the Public saw the draft Bill before it was submitted to Parliament on 27th November 2024. It was only after its submission we were able to see it for the first time on downloading it from the Parliamentary website. Many of the responses from the Public on the Consultation were ignored. For instance…….

“From 1884 Malvern Hills Trust (Conservators) has been and is a Public Body; in 1984 for VAT reasons, MHT chose to register as a charity too.”

Since then, it has had dual status, acknowledged by a 2002 document and in 2011 Report following the St Ann's Well affair. In 2019 Annual Review document written by last Chair states:

‘Like that of many Public Bodies…….’

“MHT is a Public Body by virtue of being in receipt of substantial funds by the levying of a Precept on the Public.”

 It is therefore bound by Public Law obligations so that confidence in Public Bodies is not eroded.

“Duties of a Public Body in respect of a Public Consultation”

Include:

-To act in a fully transparent way

-To consult widely at a formative stage of proposals

-To take full account of all representations made as a result of consultation (ie. To act fairly and reasonably with the public)

Any actions by a Public Body which undermine the confidence of the Public is NOT acting in a fair or reasonable manner.

“The Consultation 2024 was primarily about seeking considerable extra powers which if granted will give MHT absolute control over the area without debate.”

Mention was made of 23 extra powers being sought.

Those were in addition to other powers mentioned in the Consultation questionnaire.

What benefits do the Public obtain from this Private Bill??

It seems that the Public will be the losers, paying the Precept and losing all rights to a democratic vote with loss of Trustee representatives and any say in how our money is spent.

No case has been made as to why all these extra powers are required.

“The Consultation questions were ‘loaded’ ie. Designed to elicit the response required. They were at best ambiguous.

For instance

Qu. 8. Meetings of the Trust should be open to the public when a binding decision is to be made

If the answer was ‘agree’, no issue, BUT if you wanted to disagree, what were you disagreeing to. Were you implying then that Meetings of the Trust should NOT be open to the Public or that Meetings should not be open to the Public when a binding decision has to be made.

OR

Q. 23. The ability of individuals to require personal notice of the exercise of the Trust’s power to put up a temporary fence should be removed AND a requirement on the Trust to publish notices on its website be added.

Agreement was straightforward, but disagreeing was not. If you disagreed, were you disagreeing with the first part of the question, the second part or the whole of it. There were two questions but only one set of answer boxes.

The Public Consultation guidelines stipulate that information to stakeholders

 -should be easy to comprehend, clear and concise

-should be in an easily understandable format,

- should use plain language and clarify the key issues, particularly where the consultation deals with complex subject matter

The Malvern Hills Trust Consultations of 2019 and 2024 were none of the above.