Dulwich Estate - fit to run conservation?

[EDOldie]

spider69 Wrote

>

> As it looks like a public toilet found in past

> years in parks why not turn it into one for the

> benefit of all.

Be jolly convenient if the developers can knock it down

[fazer71]

OMG

[skiddywill]

Seriously, what's happening to the stocks!?

[DulvilleRes]

The current plan for the stocks seems to be to move them from their current site to over the road to somewhere unspecified around the old graveyard. It is hard to fully ascertain where their final destination will be, as Dulwich Estate appear selective about who they ever engage in any kind of conservation discussion with.

The Estate party line seems to be that the stocks, once moved, will be closer to their original site. This is a somewhat puzzling assertion, in that the plaque that accompanies the current site states that the stocks are sited 'on or near' their original position, and after a bit of digging around I found this reference to them in a guide published in 1878, which backs up their current position - opposite the burial ground.

'The village "stocks" and "cage," with the motto, "It is a sport for a fool to do mischief; thine own wickedness shall correct thee," formerly stood at the corner of the pathway across the fields leading to Camberwell, opposite the burial-ground; and the college "pound," which formerly stood near the toll-gate in the Penge Road, was, in 1862, ordered to be removed to the end of Croxted Lane.'

London Old and New volume 6, author Edward Walford.

But when you can get an extra couple of bedrooms into a multi million pound house, why let a bit of heritage get in the way?

The current development plan is to cram as much multi storey housing onto the site as they can, corner to corner, presumably to maximise return on investment. The stocks site is falling victim to the plan pushing into one of these corners. As a piece of design, this runs contrary to the open, low rise character of both the housing that was originally on the site before the garage, and the open and green character of this bit of Dulwich in general.

[DulvilleRes]

In answer to the question from macutd about what is happening to the workshop and everyone working there

The plan is to take the servicing operation elsewhere in South London, but the Audi showroom remains. My understanding is that people working in that part of the operation will be redeployed. The workshop facing Calton Avenue and Gilkes Crescent will be demolished to free up the plot, along with the 1930's service station opposite the Village Hall.

Quite a lot has been made by Dulwich Estate/ SG Smith about how this will relieve on street parking in Dulwich Village, Calton Avenue and Gilkes Crescent, as currently SG Smith treat the roads around them as an extension of their business. However, seeing as SG Smith are still seemingly in official denial that they park on the street, (Mr Smith himself allegedly denied to a residents face that any cars were ever parked on the road - a brilliant comedy moment) I think that the situation won't change massively. There are likely to be deliveries of new cars, and the possibility of people dropping cars off for service to be taken elsewhere in any event.

[Zebedee Tring]

Quite apart from aesthetic and traffic generation considerations,perhaps someone could explain to me how they could get 14 dwellings on the site, when supposedly many of them would be so called luxury dwellings.

[DulvilleRes]

In reply to Zebedee Tring's post

They are getting the dwellings in by building right into every corner of the site, and creating mainly 3 storeys with a massive basement as well. Essentially it is a high density urban development in the middle of a conservation area famed for its greenness and openness, which runs completely contrary to the Dulwich Estate's stated aims for the area.

In the build up there has been all kinds of tosh coming out from the Estate/ their planning consultants/ architects about how it fits harmoniously into both the surrounding streets and their history, when in fact most of the houses facing it are 2 storey, as were the houses on the site before the garage was built.

[Zebedee Tring]

Thanks for this, DR.

So how the hell could Southwark grant planning permission for such an massive overdevelopment in a conservation area? Surely it would run counter to any planning guidance, national or local authority.

[intexasatthe moment]

How indeed .

I've been wondering a great deal lately about how one ,as a bystander ( oh ,sorry presumably that should be stakeholder ) and not the applicant , can query any decision taken by Southwark planning department .

Or even something basic like a quoted measurement .

[DulvilleRes]

In fairness to Southwark, the development isn't through the planning process yet. The consultation window opened a week or so ago, is open for another couple of weeks, and then they make their decision. During the next couple of weeks, anyone can comment on the plans.

http://planningonline.southwark.gov.uk/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeResultDetail&TheSystemkey=9556375

Hopefully Southwark will succeed in putting some balance into their proposal that respects the site's heritage and the character of this part of Dulwich, something which in my view the Dulwich Estate has miserably failed to do.

However, the momentum is currently with Dulwich Estate/ SG Smith. They've chucked a huge amount of cash at massaging the proposal through. This includes employing spin merchants ( officially 'planning consultants') Dalton Warner Davis who are presumably behind such comic gems as interpreting a room full of people giving them a hard time about the existing proposal, as being 'broadly in favour'. The planning system is weighted in favour of the developer - if Southwark reject the plan as it stands, and Dulwich Estate/ SG Smith appeal, Southwark Council will have to pick up the costs if their appeal succeeds.

[LadyNorwood]

Does anyone know if it's possible to get a property released from DE enfranchisement (we're the last property on the boundary)?

[DulvilleRes]

LadyNorwood on getting released from enfranchisement

I've not heard of it, and at face value, it is likely to be as hard as not paying a TV licence or Poll Tax on grounds of principle. If you are on their original estate, it feels to me there is very little you can do about it. It might be worth checking on historic maps where your property is, and where the boundary lies.

However I'm thinking there might be legal grounds to challenge Dulwich Estate's levy in general. They were given the powers to impose it, on the grounds that when leaseholders were able to buy their freeholds in the 70's, Dulwich Estate had a right to protect the value of their 'investment' - i.e. the 1500 or acres of Dulwich they control. They say they use the cash to conserve the area and run their management scheme that prevents us building sheds without the site inspection ( additional fees apply), and hanging out washing. However if there is a case that they are failing in that regard - such as riding roughshod over heritage issues if it doesn't suit their financial agenda - there might be a case for challenging it.

There is more than a sniff of gravy train in the whole Dulwich Estate charitable set up. Income of ?9 million, and well over ?1 million of that in wages. There can't be that much to do - not sure this is what Edward Alleyn had in mind when he left his cash to educate '12 Poor Scholars'.

[fazer71]

The new build houses at the bottom of Court Lane near the Village are a planning disgrace!

The Dulwich Estate doesn't allow velux windows to the front of houses, yet they allow these monstrosities to be built and overshadow the adjoining Edwardian houses.

Dulwich Estate are an absolute Joke :(

[DulvilleRes]

Fazer71 - couldn't agree more.

The new low Dulwich Estate have sunk to is the fact that English Heritage are looking like they might have to step in to stop them from moving the 1760 stocks monument at the bottom of Calton Avenue, which they want to shift to an exposed and inauthentic site over the road, as it is currently an inconvenience to their plans to hoover up millions from the SG Smith site.

It is a joke when national bodies and local residents have to do the Estate's conservation job for them. The Dulwich Society, who the Estate lean on heavily for credibility in their planning applications, are strangely quiet on all this.

[sb]

.

[Dadadada]

The real problem with DE is that they have been misinformed or badly advised as to their purpose as a charity. DE seem to think their primary purpose is profit maximisation at the expense of everyone else to fund the private schools. If it is behaving like a commercial property developer it should be taxed like one.

[right-clicking]

I have had the unfortunate pleasure of living under the management of this shower of idiots for the past 40 years, they are a law unto themselves, I remember back in the 70's when the toll gate raised it's charges from a reasonable ?0.0s 6d to an outrageous 50p, the estate promised that once the revenue reached a million they would invest it in reconstructing collage road, what they actually did was to tarmac over the shingle surface with the minimal amount of groundworks leaving it as bumpy and dangerous as it ever was!

I used to live in one of their tower blocks on Farquhar rd, 60% of residents applied for double glazing and were refused on the grounds that they would not be befitting to the area leaving everybody with ill fitting crittall windows.

I now live on Fountain drive the top end extension of collage rd we too are denied double glazing, I am entitled to a 50% discount on the gate but choose to drive around the long way rather than add to the coffers to these arseholes

[fazer71]

Agreed with the exception you're being unfair to arseholes.

The Estate are beyond common sense and comprehension.

Even calling them morons would be unfair to morons.

:(

[JohnL]

Elephant Wrote:

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

> I have to agree with the comments that DulvilleRes

> makes. It seems that we must question who Dulwich

> Estate serves and who will be the financial

> beneficiaries of this development apart from SG

> Smith, Dulwich College, JAGS?

>

> Given the adverse publicity that is currently

> surrounding southwark council, lend lease the

> developers, and the redevelopment of the elephant

> and castle with far fewer affordable properties

> being built in that location than was proposed, I

> fear that the planning process may be a forgone

> conclusion?

>

> If I can support in any way happy to do so.

>

> http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/17/trut

> h-property-developers-builders-exploit-planning-ci

> ties

>

> http://www.theguardian.com/politics/davehillblog/2

> 013/feb/13/elephant-and-castle-southwark-council-r

> egeneration-rights-and-wrongs

The objective they have sort of makes it obvious that they

serve their beneficiaries along with preservation of assets

and thats it.

[DulvilleRes]

'The real problem with DE is that they have been misinformed or badly advised as to their purpose as a charity. DE seem to think their primary purpose is profit maximisation at the expense of everyone else to fund the private schools. If it is behaving like a commercial property developer it should be taxed like one'.

Couldn't agree more Dadadada

I'm doing some digging as to what exactly constitutes charitable status. Dulwich Estate is looking more like a tax avoidance racket to me than a charity - it is a brilliant virtuous circle of raising cash free tax in Dulwich, giving it to the private schools, who in turn don't pay any tax on their operations because of the Dulwich Estate charity bursaries. Along they way the Estate pay themselves a very generous, no risk management fee - over ?1.1 million in salaries. A great little gravy train that just keeps puffing round and round.

I've recently worked with a proper charity, one staffed virtually exclusively by volunteers (most of whom are on moderate to low personal incomes), who actually go out and save lives, and their total running costs are less than the Dulwich Estate's wage bill. The Estate just look rotten and shabby in comparison. Anyone out there with an expertise in the law surrounding charity?

JL - As regards the SG Smith development, not sure that it will be slam dunk for the Estate. It was certainly looking that way in the summer, but there is widespread resistance to large facets of the plans, not least of all because of concerns about heritage, flooding, density, a huge undergorund car park and the fact that parts of the Dulwich Estate/ SG Smith pitch are pure fiction. The Calton Avenue and Gilkes Residents Associations have been very active, and various other bodies in the borough are beginning to wake up to what is going on. The Estate clearly hoped to smash the application through by sheer force of planning bullish*t and momentum, but bit by bit, their application is getting unpicked and exposed for what it is. Lets hope it continues this way.

[stephent]

Employing 25 people to run a 240mm property estate for 0.4% per annum doesn't sound particularly egregious...

What do you think is a fair cost (given the required expertise and maintenance)?

[EDOldie]

I think that's the problem, nobody thinks they have any expertise.

[Penguin68]

Or rather, they think they are deploying that expertise to different ends than they (the posters) would choose. Undoubtedly the Estate has made mistakes, and has proven itself a difficult 'landlord' in terms of the way it has stopped some developments, or even minor changes - but equally, and arguably, it has helped preserve some of the local charms within Dulwich. As well as directly supporting (to an extent) a few schools in the public sector, it should be remembered that the private schools it supports also (and additionally) support public sector education. Maybe not enough, but certainly some.

Inevitably the Estate (as opposed to the schools it supports) is more focussed on managing that estate to preserve and enhance value so that it can use that money for the charitable ends it was set up to address, rather than on itself directly impacting education (save through its schools).

It is entirely possible to challenge and argue individual actions of the Estate (particularly its current development plans) but overall, in the last few centuries, it has been a general force for good.

[DaveR]

"The real problem with DE is that they have been misinformed or badly advised as to their purpose as a charity."

I'm afraid the real problem is that many posters (unsurprisingly) don't understand how charity law in the UK operates, and how different the legal status and obligations of a charitable trust can be from what a layperson thinks of as a 'proper charity'. This has been discussed in some detail on other threads concerning the Dulwich Estate. Details regarding the Estate's charitable objects and beneficiaries can be found here:

http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=312751&SubsidiaryNumber=0

[Dadadada]

and that's the same Charity Commission whose guidance clearly states:

"Consider whether it would be in the interests of the charity to adopt an ethical approach. They might want to avoid investments that conflict in a practical way with the aims of the charity or that might alienate donors or beneficiaries, or they might want to make investments that reflect its values and ethos."

and

"Trustees of any charity can decide to invest ethically, even if the investment might provide a lower rate of return than an alternative investment. Ethical investment means investing in a way that reflects a charity?s values and ethos and does not run counter to its aims. However, a charity?s trustees must be able to justify why it is in the charity?s best interests to invest in this way. The law permits the following reasons:

? a particular investment conflicts with the aims of the charity; or

? the charity might lose supporters or beneficiaries if it does not invest ethically; or

? there is no significant financial detriment."

...is it?

It doesn't have to develop on school playing fields, even if it can and it would be in its beneficiaries' best financial interests to do so. What do the DE's current intentions say about its values and ethos.

Alleyns, Dulwich College and JAGS have representatives as trustees. What does it say about their values and ethos and their attitude towards state schools?