Our Vision for Future Property Development

The topic for tonight’s quarterly Community Conversation event is future potential property development. Here Dartington’s CEO, Vaughan Lindsay, shares our development vision…

Click here to download the presentation

Our Vision

Since its inception in 1925, The Dartington Hall Trust has achieved international renown as a place of experiment, education and enterprise. Today, we employ some 350 people, the vast majority of whom live locally, and we welcome over 1 million visitors each year. Currently, Dartington supports 16 charitable programmes with over 20 new initiatives in development. Our work reaches out to some 88 countries across the globe. All of this contributes over £15 million each year into the local economy and helps shape the unique character of the local area.

During the next 5 years, we plan to invest over £35 million in Dartington, creating more than 100 new jobs and developing new initiatives whilst reshaping and maintaining the estate.

Our Needs

Despite what some may believe, there is no endowment to tap into when times are financially challenging. The legacy left by our founders, Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, lies in their creation of the ‘Dartington experiment’ and the beautiful estate within which it is nurtured. The hard financial facts are that we have to turnover around £17 million per annum to meet our current commitments and future aspirations. This means that whilst Dartington is a charity, it must act like a business if it is to survive and thrive – this is why we use the term ‘social enterprise’. Nothing can be done without sustained and significant amounts of money. We are guardians of a beautiful estate that it is our duty to preserve and keep open to all. The estate’s general maintenance costs alone are in excess of £1 million a year. Running our existing activities, let alone developing new ones in our three programme areas of the arts, social justice and sustainability, also costs in excess of £7 million.

Our Resources

Making efficient use of our assets and resources is fundamental to our existence. Throughout its history, the Trust has always sought to generate revenue from its activities and commercial enterprises. It has also always been involved in the development and judicious sale of land. Today is no different from the past. With our ambitious programme development plans we need to call upon all resources – income generation, fundraising, enterprises and property development. In the coming months we will be embarking on a programme which will seek to generate a considerable amount of money from the sale and development of some key sites within the local area. We do this because we need to continue to raise funds to support the development and growth of the activities at Dartington and the management and maintenance of the estate. We do this because we know we need this money to continue our work with confidence through what are clearly difficult times.

Our Commitment

We recognise that there are those within the community of which we are a part who will not welcome the prospect of change or further development. We are mindful and sensitive to this. We therefore want to make a commitment to engage with our neighbours from the outset so that they can better understand what we propose to do – and have an opportunity to influence the outcome. Localism will play a key part; local skills, local housing, local employment and local consultation. We will seek to work with development partners who recognise what we stand for and understand that our values and those of the wider community should be reflected in the completed development. We hope that in making this commitment to real and meaningful engagement with the community that we can work together to achieve better outcomes for us all.

>> Click here for information on our Land Use Review process, which explores how best to use our core estate for our key charitable aims of experimentation, education and enterprise.