“Amicable agreement” offers new life for Schumacher after Dartington divorce  

Schumacher College has cleared the way towards starting a new existence as an independent entity, following an agreement with the organisation running the Dartington estate over the use of the college’s name and educational resources created over three decades.

We wish the foundation well…

The accord with Dartington Hall Trust also covers a settlement between the two organisations over the conditions attached to a £2m gift to the college which had threatened to block any move by the trust to find a new use for the former college buildings on the estate.
While the people behind the college’s plans must still raise the several million pounds needed to establish Schumacher on a new footing away from Dartington, news of the deal marks a cordial ending to a stormy episode triggered last year when the trust effectively served an eviction order on the college, creating a furious outcry from supporters. Agreement over the use of the Schumacher College name, plus crucial  “business assets” such as course materials and research, has been negotiated over several months between Dartington and the Satish Kumar Foundation, representing the college.

Kumar is a well-connected environmental and peace campaigner who was a leading light in establishing Schumacher on the Dartington estate in 1991, after which it built up a global reputation in ecology studies. The India-born activist has spearheaded the effort to forge a fresh start for the college in a different home divorced from Dartington and with a new financial structure.

Robert Fedder, Dartington’s interim chief executive, said the agreement between the two sides had been  reached “very amicably”. It would transfer to the college’s backers “a great deal of unique educational collateral and other resources built over the years”. Fedder said: “We wish the foundation well in its mission for Schumacher College.”

Jon Rae, chair of the  trustees at the foundation, said the understanding meant the college had “entered a period of renewal” as a result of which it would continue its efforts to “translate ecological insight and social imagination into everyday practice, helping create places where people and planet thrive together“.   Under the deal between the two organisations the foundation has paid an “undisclosed sum” to the trust for the intellectual property assets behind Schumacher.

As well as the buildings used to house the college, the trust had always owned these “intangible” assets, due to the college being a core part of Dartington’s operations since it started.  However after Lord David Triesman, the trust’s chair since 2023 discovered what he felt was a gaping hole in Dartington finances, he and other managers decided that the college’s expenses were too high to allow its continuation, leading to its closure as part of a range  of cost-cutting measures including a big drop in the trust’s staff.

Despite the trust’s intentions, it appeared that a little-known restriction over the donation of £2m to Schumacher in 2019 for repairs to its main building might torpedo the effort to force the college out in favour of finding another use for its site that would generate a better financial return and so boost the Dartington coffers.

A key condition linked to the gift – made by Andrew McAulay, a publicity-shy Hong Kong-based businessman who had studied at the college – was that no entity other than Schumacher would be permitted to use the college’s main building until 2039.  Reneging on this condition could lead, under a strict interpretation of the stipulation, to the trust either having to repay the £2m or face a legal challenge from McAulay aimed at compelling Dartington to keep the college in operation at least for another 14 years.  But as part of the overall settlement between the two sides, in exchange for the cooperation by the trust over the intellectual assets, McAulay has agreed to rescind the condition over his gift, so allowing both the Schumacher backers and the trust to part company on reasonably friendly terms.

An indication that events were moving in this direction came in May when Dartington said it had reached agreement with a new organisation to take over the former college site. Redwood River School, a private independent school for children with autism and other neurodiverse needs, has a 10-year lease on the site. It has already moved in, and hopes to receive its first cohort of pupils In January.

Dartington is unlikely to have wanted to strike the deal if it had thought this would create a significant risk of a serious legal dispute. The idea of repaying the £2m was always deemed highly unlikely, given that Dartington is very short of money.  Meanwhile – now the college’s supporters have reached the end of their manoeuvrings with the trust – they must turn their attention both to raising the cash needed to finance a new Schumacher operation and also to find a suitable site to house the establishment on a permanent basis.

While the backers have identified some potential funders, and have homed in on another large Devon country house as a potential home, they face what might be a long and gruelling struggle to bring their plans to fruition.