£15million regeneration plan for Dartington estate

By steve peacock speacock@heraldexpress.co.uk

DARTINGTON is planning to pump £15million over the next five years into major regeneration projects that will change the face of the 1,200-acre estate.

The huge injection of cash and innovation partly aims to fill the hole left by the loss of Dartington College of Arts, but is also to reinvigorate the estate and its commitment to experimentation and making the world a 'better place' through its ethics of the arts, sustainability and social justice.

New projects include:

Moving the world famous Schumacher College into the Lower Close old 'college' buildings and tripling the number of students over the next three years.

Converting the old Foxhole school complex into ground breaking 'Abundant Life' homes for older people as well as a base for dozens of small businesses.

Launching a Dartington Space operation by converting the Lower Close and Hexagon Gym building, formerly part of the art college, to create a practice and rehearsal hub for organisations like the Royal Ballet School similar to London's Jerwood Space centre.

Developing a residents' course for former prisoners to help them develop work and life skills.

Dartington Trust chief executive Vaughan Lindsay said: "Dartington will look different in five years' time. It is a place of experimentation and has continually evolved and changed.

"We will be looking at a completely different set of vibrant activities to those here now. It will be difficult but we will be building on what we have here already."

The trust is also actively looking at ways to find uses for the Old Postern when Schumacher College moves, and the Aller Park old school complex, which has remained empty for many years.

Mr Lindsay admitted that the last published set of annual figures showed the estate had shown a loss of £900,000 for 2008-09. But it was planned to partly fund the trust's five-year plan by capitalising on some of its assets, which could involve selling off land.

The trust is already rationalising its Cider Press Centre retail complex, which will involve redundancies.

It aims to increase its income from the activities it has planned, and will also be looking at fundraising and borrowing.

The Dartington College of Arts tcampus, with hundreds of students, will move to Cornwall this summer after more than 30 years on the estate.

But the trust is already working with organisations like the Eden Project and Plymouth and Exeter Universities to launch Dartington-based new eco courses.