Petition for reasonable rents from Dulwich Estates

[rupert james]

The charity has become a business to support the wealthy.

Please explain

[edhistory]

Jules-and-Boo Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Edward Alleyn origially created a charitable

> foundation and gave to it his property to support

> the education of the poor.

You need to read the current legal position of the Charities [sic, yes plural].

These are readily available on the Charities Commission web-site.

[Jules-and-Boo]

the main beneficiaries are the college and private schools, which are fee paying - how is that

tangible public benefit to the community at large in the form of : Education (originally to twelve poor scholars)?

[Blah Blah]

Do the schools provide scholarships and bursaries for some students though? I don't know the answer to that but just wonder that it might wrong to describe all pupils as fee paying at those schools. Having said that, like everyone above, I don't undertand why fee paying schools aren't self sufficient financially.

[redpost]

Just looked at 2013 accounts for dulwich college, ?1.9m total value of bursaries. Taking the other schools into account, I think it is safe to assume that almost all the dulwich estate income goes on bursaries.

As for the toy shop, rents go up, it's a fact of business - and from what I can see the rise is not unreasonable.

My wife has a small office from the crown estate, rent goes up 20-30% every 3 years on renewal.

Personally, I think a small toy shop is going to have a very hard time surviving with the online competition.

[Loz]

I remember reading somewhere that the cricketer, Chris Jordan, went to Dulwich College under either a scholarship or a bursary.

[Otta]

Yes they do scholarships and bursaries.

http://www.dulwich.org.uk/college/admissions/scholarships-bursaries

That is not to say that they are not very privileged schools that shouldn't really be funded by a "charity", but it is a completely different conversation to how much the estate should be charging in rent. And we're not talking about a family having to leave their home due to rent increases, we're talking about a business that has several branches ( a small chain in fact).

As is often the case in discussions like this, emotive nonsense kind of ruins things.

I don't believe fee paying schools should exist, but it's an entirely different discussion.

[Blah Blah]

The bursery point though does shed a different light on the money given by the estate to those schools, which is why I wondered.

Business rents, again not something I know anything about, have been pushed up everywhere no? Small businesses have disappeared from our high streets because of that reason. There has to be some element of greed by landlords there.

[Otta]

Of course there is.

Landlords in 'wanting to get as much money as possible' shocker.

[Willard]

Fantastic article by Jay Rayner:

http://www.jayrayner.co.uk/news/dulwichcollege/

[LondonMix]

What a load of rubbish that petition is! Businesses regardless of who their landlords might be have to pay market rate rents. Why should anyone subsidise a for profit business with multiple chains in the area?

As others have said, Dulwich estate is a charity that supports 2 non fee schools, the alms house and provides significant bursaries for the 3 fee paying schools it is charged to support. It has a feduciary responsibility to maximise income to support these institutions.

[Willard]

Over 85% of their revenue after costs goes to 3 very expensive fee paying schools. Dulwich College is ?38,000 a year for a boarder.

[LondonMix]

The revenue funds scholarships to those schools for children who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to attend.

Either way, Dulwich Estates is not a charity designed to support private for profit businesses like the toy store by offering lower than market rents. The shop has no reasonable right to expect any landlord will charge them below market rates.

[Willard]

I don't think the "charitable" Dulwich Estate has a right to hike up rents by 70%. I'll sign off by quoting Rayner:

"The Dulwich Estate and its Chief Executive John Major (no, not that one) can point to Charity Commission rules which require them to get the best financial deals they can, and therefore argue that they are merely performing their legal duties by pricing out the toy shop. Except they?re not doing so consistently, because, for example, they?ve left the Half Moon Pub empty for over two years, when it could be earning them rents. They don?t even seem to be applying their own policies as laid out in their Scheme of Management drawn up in 1995. That requires them to behave in such a way as to have ?a positive impact on the community, is attractive to the public and thus stimulates local businesses?. There is nothing attractive or stimulating about their current behaviour. Indeed, the Charity Commission also requires trustees to consider ?reputational damage? caused by their trading policies. Right now they are doing themselves enormous reputational damage. So much so that there are many of us who question why a body like the Dulwich Estate, with property worth hundreds of millions, should be a charity at all, given the tax benefits that status brings."

[LondonMix]

Saying that Dulwich Estate should be maximising their revenue better with the pubs is no kind of argument for why the toy shop deserves below market rents. Its a total non-sequitur.

The only argument that one could reasonably make is that the rent being charged is above market rate and is therefore unfair. So far I haven't heard anyone make that assertion in large part because rent reviews are carried out by 3rd parties and aren't actually determined exclusively by landlords in the UK.

I actually find the manipulative arguments being spewed by Just Williams (a for profit chain with branches in various locations in London) for why they should be granted below market rents really disgraceful. Why do they think they deserve this special treatment and why do the think the bursaries and charities that the income should sacrifice this money to increase their private profit margins?

[edhistory]

Accounts:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-prod/docs/sal5WI0BWJT9NsoEDFqsWI6R0xglAZxdOqIXJYAP2Uk/application-pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIAIEQUQ66IHKJXK66A&Expires=1455655604&Signature=2gbP0WOaJOQPo0fWEVXtZZsD18w%3D&x-amz-security-token=AQoDYXdzEJT%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEa4APTuNEOvip9uG8WqOct7yuplHV9Q4TeKvKHictwZDArxrVcBY1SPk4Cc0Yb7OFFS7NEvrkUKQ4zCUPNcBMFcp8FU3KOMhVSgqAxGOg8IL9ghanztqZvrUsjOVU4P1xLFrMvuBJoW8%2F2tPQMdE8OCrgF%2FEzp9df%2BWfkUaz0KScE6ceVnMIiIxq%2BNhRNcifmLAdoppXQs4mU8FGAcFu7qhOpeh75ErUWBF6ccf38gZnGBQx55%2FKPlQ5puDlwoxe%2FrPQgHWrf7Kxh%2FofXSRTs5QZXxAfU%2FMz1UgDd4qXg7H5%2FkefPJGTsJem1Zdhun4Wr%2BVSHgmFL2EhJzumqWcDKDLHmg%2Fzx5bTEh7UvH%2Bh5lOWWAE9%2FyQxqpIu2XG8wB0GZzpnG5s%2FxdXqb1stRLunc7fEFoN3VqRrKKUhMlNKAMyxJDXzQ6y%2FmLUNFlYXH7cx0NSqypgkqzHgtwUb6hs2W4sEyDqOp1LE0oaciEqYFs6YWfr5rwVyR8BhexpvgTrMg8phdJdz%2FUs25vrTHIVv82os0o5M8GmxSsyurYUtsJz4j0gtOuLlkoGU0BSde7kyx3urJ2C7UrKD4kvx4uLIS2qsyurjHo6UyxwUkKTIutKTNKq1iCIkZDC63S%2BxYLwVQl8Twgp%2B2NtgU%3D

[tomskip]

Yes, I agree, a very neat and concise article by Jay Rayner - well worth a read if you are interested in the story.

Is it really so awful to hope that your local parade of shops doesn't become an identikit replica of every other godforsaken High Street in the country?

[LondonMix]

There is nothing wrong with wanting independent shops on your high street. The way to do that is to patronise them and give them your financial support. I am pretty sure the rents in Clapham (and ED possibly) are higher than in Herne Hill given the footfall and this small chain of toy stores manages to survive as a profitable enterprise there.

The local businesses people have are the ones they support.

Acting like Dulwich Estate in this instance is doing anything wrong simply by charging market rent for the premises is ridiculous. The toy store in their petitions and public statements act like they are doing 'Gods work'. Its a for profit shop and will most likely be replaced by another small chain store which will have virtually no impact on the look of the area.

[James Barber]

I'm not clear of the link between the ?8m+ annual subsidy from the Dulwich Estate commercial activities of the three big local private schools. 86% of the Dulwich Estates profits going to those three private schools.

The schools have very different levels and numbers of bursaries. Most of the bursaries are 10-15% discounts on the fees. The fees have been increasing YoY by 5%.

Also as a proportion of places - the schools have been expanding numbers of pupils over recent years - the bursary places may actually be proportionally lower than they used to be. Don't have time to analyse this.

The schools via the coach services are increasingly becoming sub regional schools - making the serving of families from Greenwich to Fulham - rather than local private schools possible.

[LondonMix]

James, as a local Councillor don't you think you have a responsibility to look into things before making allegations about a local institution. Just casually posting your unresearched suspicions isn't really helpful and can only add confusion to an already confused discussion.

[LondonMix]

And just to clarify:

Dulwich Estate in its last financial accounts generated 6.8m for its beneficiaries not 8m-- see page 6 of the annual report

http://www.dulwichestate.co.uk/docs/general/de_accounts15.pdf

Dulwich College (just one of the 3 fee paying schools): The value of means tested bursaries Dulwich College provides is just under 2m quid per annum.

http://www.dulwich.org.uk/docs/default-source/annual-report-and-accounts/dulwich-college-financial-statements-for-the-year-ended-31-july-2013.pdf?sfvrsn=2

This information took me 10 minutes to find.

I don't have time to find the information for the other two schools but they all use their disbursements for means tested bursaries in a similar fashion to Dulwich College. That's where their share of the income goes. They also prioritize the neediest- i.e. they will give one full fee bursary rather than 2 50% bursaries. Alleyn's explicitly states the majority of its bursaries are for IN EXCESS of 50% of fees on its website.

The means testing is on a sliding scale. Less that 13k family income gets you a full scholarship and if your family income is greater the 54k you don't qualify for any support at JAGS so I think its bang out of order for anyone to suggest the charity is somehow misusing the funds and income they generate, particularly as a means to undermine Dulwich Estate for the benefit of a for profit shop!

[LondonMix]

However, all of that is truly irrelevant. Just Williams is a for profit business. Why do they think they should pay below market rents to anyone? Their attitude is particularly galling as this would reduce the bursaries and other charity support provided by Dulwich Estate.

The simple truth as already admitted by the toy store is that they were offered a rent of 35k based on a lease signed at number 22. Dulwich Estate then lowered this offer in consideration of the fact that they were a long standing tenant. The rent rise is 29% over 5 years as the lease was fixed from 2010 to 2015 which amounts to just under a 5% annual compound increase. All of this Vicky B has conceded to online.

http://www.hernehill.org.uk/comment/8489#comment-8489

If the business model doesn't work in Herne Hill because of the demographics or its too close in proximity to the ED branch or whatever that's unfortunate but its life. If the 5,000 people who have signed this ridiculous petition spent even 50 quid a year in the shop instead of just moaning and protesting about wanting independents, the store would have over 250k in revenue. You get what you support and blaming Dulwich Estate for the shop closing is preposterous.

[Otta]

The point Rayner makes about the half moon is a nonsense, because had they had their way it would have long ago been turned in to flats (above the pub) and no doubt brought them in significant income.

Im glad that didn't happen, but to say they've just left it empty isn't entirely accurate.

[LondonMix]

Otta almost nothing being said is accurate. Its all such a load of crap. That Helen Hayes is now involved boggles the mind...

[stephent]

I agree with LondonMix; if the estate decided to sell the shop instead of let it should they sell it at 60% of the market value?

Would anyone signing the petition be prepared to sell their house at 60% of the market value (or donate 40% of the value to charity)?