Ocean Conservation Trust Limited

Registered charity 1032491 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · Wikidata: Q1967440 · Wikipedia · also known as NATIONAL MARINE AQUARIUM LIMITED

Advance the education of the public in, and promote the conservation of, living marine and freshwater aquatic organisms by the provision of an aquarium and museum and other programmes of education and research and to disseminate the useful results of such research for the benefit of the public

Objects

To promote and contribute to the conservation, protection and improvement of the Ocean and of all forms of aquatic life and to the conservation and regeneration of aquatic habitats, species and ecosystems that sustain life, all for the benefit of the public. To advance the education of the public in the conservation, protection and improvement of the Ocean and of all forms of aquatic life and in the conservation and regeneration of aquatic habitats, species, and ecosystems that sustain life by the provision of an aquarium and or other programmes of education and research and to disseminate the useful results of such research all for the benefit of the public.

Area of benefit: NOT DEFINED

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: General Charitable Purposes · Education/training · Animals · Environment/conservation/heritage · Grant history (this charity is a funder) · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Plymouth, South West, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2026 accounts

The accounts state that the group ended the year with net cash of £2,126,339, equivalent to approximately 5.1 months of operating costs, which is below the previous year's 5.9 months. The group reported a net expenditure of £834,258 for the year, resulting in a decrease in unrestricted free reserves to £1,577,000. Despite this deficit, the trustees confirmed the group remains a going concern with adequate resources to continue operational existence for the foreseeable future.

Automated summary of the FY2026 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by PKF Francis Clark LLP. Discloses 6 of 6 completeness components.

Year-over-year changes

• Top pay band moved from £90,001 - £100,000 (FY2025) to £100,001 - £110,000 (FY2026).

Comparing this charity’s FY2025 and FY2026 accounts as analysed by this site.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investment
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures
• Volunteer management

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — Ocean Conservation Trust (matched by registered charity number).

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/01/2026)

Reported reserves equal ~2.4 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.7 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (45% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 19.8% of total income — in the top quarter for charities its size (median 5.3%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (22/09/2026) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• William Joseph Oultonchair
• Charlotte Davies
• Joseph Patrick Lavery
• Matej PFAJFAR
• Paul Cox
• Professor Jeremy Alan Roberts
• Stefano Tiratelli

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Devon

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with MARINE CONSERVATION SOCIETY.

• MARINE CONSERVATION SOCIETY income £5.3m
• CHAGOS CONSERVATION TRUST income £40k
• OCEANA UK income £2.3m
• Ocean Generation income £705k
• THE CLASSIC BOAT CENTRE TRUST income £79k
• LOWER URE CONSERVATION TRUST income £157k

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.