THE BLUEBELL RAILWAY TRUST
Registered charity 292497 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register
Encouragement of research into railway equipment and safety, preservation of heritage railway items including rolling stock, maintenance and support of museums for the preservation of railway equipment, provision of recreational facilities connected with railways and assistance for persons in need connected with railway personnel, especially charitable purposes connected with the Bluebell Railway.
Causes: Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · Environment/conservation/heritage · Grant history (this charity is a funder) · website · Get email alerts
Financial health, per its FY2022 accounts
The accounts state that total net assets decreased to £3,624,584 from £4,458,281 in the prior year, primarily because charitable expenditure exceeded income by approximately £830,000. The trustees consider the unrestricted reserves of £773,345 to be adequate, noting that £480,345 is notionally available for grants after accounting for designated heritage assets, which exceeds their stated policy target of £250,000. The auditor confirmed there are no material uncertainties regarding the charity's ability to continue as a going concern.
Automated summary of the FY2022 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.
What the accounts disclose
Accounts audited by Knill James LLP. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.
Leadership, per the charity’s website
- Vernon Blackburn — Chairman (source)
Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.
Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram
Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/12/2024)
Reported reserves equal ~11.8 months of spending — in the top quarter for charities its size (median 4.8 months; benchmarks).
Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 0.4% of total income — below the median for charities its size (5.2%) (benchmarks).
Register events
- Received assets from another charity (07/06/2022) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).
Operates in: East Sussex · Kent · Surrey · West Sussex
Income and spending
Common questions
Is THE BLUEBELL RAILWAY TRUST financially healthy?
Per its FY2022 accounts: The accounts state that total net assets decreased to £3,624,584 from £4,458,281 in the prior year, primarily because charitable expenditure exceeded income by approximately £830,000. The trustees consider the unrestricted reserves of £773,345 to be adequate, noting that £480,345 is notionally available for grants after accounting for designated heritage assets, which exceeds their stated policy target of £250,000. The auditor confirmed there are no material uncertainties regarding the charity's ability to continue as a going concern. Its FY2022 accounts were audited by Knill James LLP.
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 THE PONTYPOOL AND BLAENAVON RAILWAY COMPANY (1983) LIMITED.
Side by side with its peers
Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.