As you’ve mentioned, we have planned our activities for this financial year. We are committed to proceeding with our plans. However, if we do not receive the funding budgeted for those activities, we would need to either scale back some of our activities or draw on our reserves. Whilst we have a healthy level of reserves currently, they are designed to protect THL UK and its activities in case of an emergency. Reducing our level of reserves would limit our ability to respond in the case of an unplanned event or emergency, and put us in a potentially difficult situation in 2024-2025 if our fundraising plans don’t go as well as we hoped for 2023-2024. Therefore, we are reliant on donations to make sure these activities can go ahead as planned, and not have a detrimental long-term impact on the organisation.
Extra funding would be used to fund our legal case against the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra).
In May 2023 we had a High Court hearing where we challenged the legality of fast-growing breeds of chicken. Although we did not win the initial case, our appeal has been granted and we will have a further hearing in spring 2024.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to force the Government, with one decision from an appeals court judge, to transform one billion innocent lives per year.
We have been able to secure a cost cap from the court, which means, if we lose the case, we are only liable to pay Defra’s legal costs up to £30k. Without this cost cap we would likely have not been able to continue with our appeal as Defra’s legal fees could be in excess of £300,000.
Regardless, £30k is still a significant sum. We will also have our other legal fees, which have been estimated at £26k (even with one of the two Barristers working on the case being fully pro bono) meaning we will need £56k in total to fund the appeal.
Because our appeal was granted only recently, we have not budgeted for a second court battle to happen in this financial year. In order to proceed with this second day in court, we need to raise these funds to be able to move ahead.
Thank you for your question.
As you’ve mentioned, we have planned our activities for this financial year. We are committed to proceeding with our plans. However, if we do not receive the funding budgeted for those activities, we would need to either scale back some of our activities or draw on our reserves. Whilst we have a healthy level of reserves currently, they are designed to protect THL UK and its activities in case of an emergency. Reducing our level of reserves would limit our ability to respond in the case of an unplanned event or emergency, and put us in a potentially difficult situation in 2024-2025 if our fundraising plans don’t go as well as we hoped for 2023-2024. Therefore, we are reliant on donations to make sure these activities can go ahead as planned, and not have a detrimental long-term impact on the organisation.
Extra funding would be used to fund our legal case against the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra).
In May 2023 we had a High Court hearing where we challenged the legality of fast-growing breeds of chicken. Although we did not win the initial case, our appeal has been granted and we will have a further hearing in spring 2024.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to force the Government, with one decision from an appeals court judge, to transform one billion innocent lives per year.
We have been able to secure a cost cap from the court, which means, if we lose the case, we are only liable to pay Defra’s legal costs up to £30k. Without this cost cap we would likely have not been able to continue with our appeal as Defra’s legal fees could be in excess of £300,000.
Regardless, £30k is still a significant sum. We will also have our other legal fees, which have been estimated at £26k (even with one of the two Barristers working on the case being fully pro bono) meaning we will need £56k in total to fund the appeal.
Because our appeal was granted only recently, we have not budgeted for a second court battle to happen in this financial year. In order to proceed with this second day in court, we need to raise these funds to be able to move ahead.