Trust charities to stick to the plan

MARY-LOUISE Riley [“Shame on homeless charities for selling developer heath land”, June 21] misunderstands the purposes of charities, and the intentions of the late Harry Hallowes, for that matter.

Charities such as Shelter and Centrepoint exist solely to alleviate the problem of homelessness. It’s not their business to hold on to a piece of land to protect it from developers. How would that do anything for the homeless? Nothing. Raising money by selling the land at auction was not just the right thing for the charities to do, it was the very thing they had to do. If Mr Hallowes had wanted to, he could have bequeathed the land at Hamsptead Heath to the City of London Corporation.

Far from being greedy, Shelter and Centrepoint are staying focused on the things they were created to do. Richard Langley