The NHS may not have funds for doctors, nurses and frontline services — but they do seem to have plenty of cash when it comes to taking chunks out of our park.

Help find our defence of Verdin Park 

We’ve already shown that Northwich Town Council has no legal right to even discuss leasing Verdin Park to the NHS. We had to uncover this ourselves because the Council’s original “legal opinion” — which they still refuse to release under FOI — didn’t even meet the most basic standard of due diligence. So, is the Council’s legal and moral duty to preserve the land for recreation enough to make them stop?

No. Not remotely.

The Council now wants to hire a specialist barrister to help overturn the wishes of Sir Robert Verdin. This is expensive — so the NHS Trust has stepped in and offered to pay for the Council’s legal advice.

This is astonishing.

The legal status of the park has nothing to do with the NHS. It is NTC’s duty alone. For the developer to finance the legal advice of the land’s trustee isn’t just dubious — it breaches the core principles that govern every public body: fairness, proper purpose, avoiding bias, fiduciary duty, transparency, and the requirement that decisions be made independently and in the public interest.

NTC owes a fiduciary duty to us, the residents. Not to the NHS Trust.
If the developer pays for the advice that shapes the Council’s decisions, that duty is broken.

We, the residents, don’t have a tax-funded, multi-billion-pound organisation willing to bankroll the unethical and immoral loss of our green spaces. All we have is each other.

If you believe Verdin Park should not be handed away behind closed doors, please help us fund the defence of our green space. Every contribution strengthens our ability to hold the Council to the law — something they seem unwilling to do themselves.

Please donate and help protect Verdin Park for our town, our children, and our future.