Two Organisations, One Unresolved Debt: Questions Over Hartlepool Charities £20,000 Loan Deepen
Borrower's Firm Dissolved, Debt Remains Outstanding: Questions Over Hartlepool Charity’s Lending Safeguards Deepen.
16th October 2026
Questions over the protection of charitable funds at a Hartlepool Charity have deepened, after its accounts revealed £20,000 of public funds were lent to a now dissolved orgainsation linked to one of its former trustees, with no formal loan agreement or agreed repayment terms in place.
It follows a Teesside & Durham Post investigation into concerns at the charity behind The Annexe community centre, known formally as 'The Wharton Trust', where an examination of the charities financial records has revealed a major unresolved question over a 'loan' supposedly handed to a business linked to one of The Wharton Trusts now former trustees, with that firm subsequently being dissolved & the Teesside & Durham Post finding that a business operating under a similar name has now been established, & running under a completely different business entity structure...
The Wharton Trust’s accounts for the year ending 31 December 2024 recorded £30,000 pounds worth of charitable funds supposedly 'advanced' to a Hartlepool Charity during the year, with £10,000 of those funds subsequently repaid, leaving £20,000 outstanding.
But The charity, which the Teesside & Durham Post has chose not to formally name had already been dissolved on the 12th November 2024, before the Trust’s financial year ended, with the trust continuing to record the outstanding loan as an asset & recoverable even after the company identified as the borrower had supposedly ceasing to exist.
Examiners for The Wharton Trusts Accounts reported that no formal loan agreement was in place and no repayment terms had been agreed. The report also stated that negotiations were continuing to establish an agreement and repayment terms, however the Teesside & Durham Post understands negotiations on the recovery of the debt are likley to be futile, as the person claimed to be responsible for the 'loan' was previously the subject of a misconduct investigation by liquidators managing the insolvency of another failed business the director was responsible for, with the Director of that firm paying a £1,500 pound final payment to settle a mesfessence claim after questions were raised over payments made from the company to the company director.
The Wharton Trust’s accounts themselves disclose that one of its trustees was in fact a director of the borrowing company at the time of the 'loan', raising questions over just who assessed the loan, who authorised it & what checks were undertaken to ensure the borrower was capable of repaying it..
A further complication in the investigation is said to be the existence of another similar named charity to the one which was disolved by the same company director & former Wharton Trust Trustee, with the business listed as operating in Hartlepool operating under a similar name but now has a different legal identity.
Its own annual report says that the new 'charity' was established in September 2023, meaning the business seemingly existed before the former similar named company was thendissolved back in November 2024, with the financial records failing to provide a simple account as to why one organisation closed and a replacement simillaly named organisation was created afterwards.
Nevertheless, the financial relationship between the two organisations—and the treatment of the Wharton Trust's borrowing—remains unclear in the published reports reviewed by the Post.
However for the charity which is now operating under the new name & headed by the former Wharton Trust Trustee, seemingly has its own questions to answer, with the CIO’s September 2024 balance sheet recording £2,633.68 under “Long term Loans & Mortgages”, without identifying any specific lender.
Its September 2025 its accounts then showed an £11,042 unsecured loan, again without identifying the lender behind it.
Neither report for the new charity explicitly identifies 'The Wharton Trust' as the lender or whether the former CIO headed by the former Wharton Trust Trustee legally & personally assumed the CIC’s outstanding £20,000 obligation.
The 2025 report also discloses a separate £6,998 short-term loan from key management personnel, which it says was fully repaid before the year ended. That disclosure again fails to explain the position of any 'loan' given to the charity by The Wharton Trust..
Someone Authorised the 'Loan'..... but who ?
The central concern therefore is consequently one of basic lending safeguards and accountability for the The Wharton Trust.
The Wharton Trust has a number of organisations which provide the charity funding for its charitable operations, one of those funders being Hartlepool Borough Council.
Before advancing charitable funds to any external organisation evidence would have needed to have been established that the borrower could repay.
The dissolving of the former CIC firm associated with the former trtustee only turns the spotlight firmly onto the new charity which was set up & what steps The Wharton Trust took to secure repayment from the borrower..
Additionally, the revelation that the same director of the new charity being subject to a Director Misconduct investigation just weeks before they then left as a trustee of The Wharton Trust leaves little to the imagination as to where any potential Charities Comission or police investigation will go next, with the loan disclosures sitting against the wider statement issued by Wharton Trust’s interim board this week, which said significant concerns about accounts, governance and operations had been reported to both the police and the Charity Commission.
The board said it was working to strengthen governance and resolve outstanding issues, while thanking current staff for continuing their duties.
It also said the ongoing investigation and regulatory processes limited what could be disclosed publicly.
Adding to the complications, its claimed that the issues surrounding this 'loan' is separate from the further unexplained £10,000 payment made to an unnamed company as highlighted elsewhere in Wharton Trust’s examiner’s report. The recipient of that payment has been identified in our Teesside & Durham Post investigation & we will disclose that in a seperate report. .
What the available records do show however, is that The Wharton Trust reported £20,000 outstanding from a now dissolved borrower, alongside an examiner’s warning that formal lending and repayment arrangements were completely absent.
This wasn't a mere oversight.... However we are restricted from disclosing the reasons for this due to it being part of the ongoing investigations.
For the community whose interests the Trust exists to serve, the unanswered question is very straightforward:
Just what arrangements are now to be made to get that charitable money back?
And Can the Wharton Trust survive this scandal ?
