A Hertfordshire lawn tennis club that charges £339 for full annual membership has been told by the Charity Commission that it is not providing sufficient public benefit and must draw up a new plan for meeting this requirement.

The Commission has today published the assessment reports of its final four public benefit assessments, looking at sport and recreation charities.  Three of the four – Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust, Tintagel Memorial Playing Fields Association and Birmingham City FC Football in the Community – were deemed to have passed the public benefit test.

But the Radlett Lawn Tennis and Squash Club “does not provide sufficient opportunity to benefit for those who cannot afford the charity’s annual membership fees”, the Commission said.

The trustees have now been given three months to confirm to the Commission that they have considered their assessment report and intend to devise a plan to deliver public benefit, and then a further nine months to submit this plan to the regulator.

Jackie Underwood, acting chair at the club, told Civil Society that the trustees would work with the Charity Commission to find ways to meet the public benefit test.

"We already provide some public benefit but we need to make ourselves more accessible to people in poverty," she said.  "It's really too early to say how we will do this but I would think we'll be looking at our membership structure and things like that."

The club registered as a charity in early 2007 though it  existed for many more years before that.  Underwood said it chose to become a charity so it could access funding from a local charitable foundation to refurbish its facilities.