THE WEST SUSSEX COUNTRYSIDE STUDIES TRUST

Registered charity 1198212 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as GOODWOOD EDUCATION TRUST

The Trust provides facilities for and administers and delivers educational activities to promote awareness and knowledge of the natural environment, heritage and the business of managing the countryside. The principal area of operation is on the Goodwood Estate in West Sussex, in particular the organic farm, woodland nature trail, Goodwood House and other business areas.

Objects

TO PROVIDE FACILITIES FOR AND TO ADMINISTER BOTH RESIDENTIAL AND NON-RESIDENTIAL COURSES IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES FOR PERSONS OF ALL BACKGROUNS AND FROM ALL PARTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING STUDIES, FARMING, HISTORY, ARCHITECTURE, AERIAL GEOGRAPHY, FORESTRY, ROAD SAFETY, PRE-LICENCE DRIVER TRAINING, NATURE STUDIES, BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY, GENERALLY WIT A VIEW TO ADVANCING EDUCATION IN AND PROMOTING AWARENESS OF THE ENVIRONMENT IN SUCH PERSONS. SEE ALSO CLAUSE 2(B) FOR FURTHER OBJECT.

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

Causes: Education/training · Environment/conservation/heritage · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Chichester, South East, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The charity reported a surplus of £31,903 for the year ended 31 December 2025, with total income of £203,650. Free/unrestricted reserves stood at £154,806, which exceeds the trustees' stated policy target of £86,000 (equivalent to six months of operating expenditure). The trustees confirmed that assets are sufficient to meet obligations and identified no factors likely to affect financial performance going forward.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts independently examined (not a full audit). Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

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
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• 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 — The Goodwood Education Trust (matched by registered charity number).

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/12/2022)

Reported reserves equal ~0.0 months of spending — in the bottom quarter for charities its size (median 7.2 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (88% 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: 13.5% of total income — in the top quarter for charities its size (median 3.2%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (08/06/2023) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• THE DUKE OF RICHMOND CHARLES HENRY DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONchair
• Claire Denise Hayes
• Jeremy Hunt
• Lloyd McNeill
• Matthew Baker

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

Operates in: West Sussex

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 NORTH WESSEX DOWNS LANDSCAPE TRUST.

• NORTH WESSEX DOWNS LANDSCAPE TRUST income £58k
• THE COBNOR ACTIVITIES CENTRE TRUST income £877k
• THE SOUTH WEST HERITAGE TRUST income £5.2m
• KINGSWOOD TRUST income £464k
• CARSTAIRS COUNTRYSIDE TRUST income £291k
• EAST KESWICK WILDLIFE TRUST income £38k

Side by side with its peers

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