Highbury Trust: Time for the city council to work with the community
Highbury Trust requires a united vision to protect Joseph Chamberlain’s legacy, says Tony Thapar.
Over the past few months a coalition of community groups and worried individuals, including a direct descendant of Joseph Chamberlain, have all voiced serious concerns about Birmingham City Council’s management of Highbury Trust.
Highbury Trust, a registered charity, was formed in 1932 when the Moseley estate of Joseph Chamberlain, one of the city’s greatest social reformers, was bequeathed to Birmingham City Council to be used ‘for the benefit of the people of Birmingham’.
Recently, concerns have been raised in response to the consultation organised by the Charity Commission. It was only through the vigilance of community groups that local people became of aware of a proposal to revise the trust deeds by Birmingham City Council. This could have seen parts of Chamberlain’s legacy sold off to fund repairs to the main hall.
The huge reaction from local people has forced the city council’s trusts and charities sub committee into an about-turn.
The council now has to decide what to do next. If the constitution is to be reviewed, there is an opportunity to reform it and to transform Highbury into an independent social enterprise that represents the spirit of the Chamberlain family’s gift.
Mary de Vere Taylor, great granddaughter of Joseph Chamberlain, has said: “There is an urgent need for new leadership and vision for the Highbury Trust. Any changes should inspire, educate and help people in Birmingham, just as my great-grandfather would have wished.” Mary has offered to become a trustee, restoring a family connection to the Trust.
There is a fundamental problem if Highbury Trust is to change and the Chamberlain legacy become better utilised. I ask myself, how can the city council continue as the sole trustee of Highbury Trust, since all the evidence points to their mismanagement of the Trust?
No accounts or report of activities have been sent to the Charity Commission for the past three years; accounts due on March 31 2006 are now 793 days over due (at the time of writing). The estate has not been used sufficiently for charitable purposes since about 1985. Compounding the problem of inappropriate use, the council now claims that the main hall is in need of urgent repairs costing £700,000.
The once-glorious gardens that surrounded the main hall have also been neglected and there is no estimate for the cost of restoration. The council as sole trustee has failed to engage with the people of Birmingham in whose interest they supposedly act.
It is clear to me that the boundary between Highbury Trust and the council has become blurred and has led to poor stewardship.
In 2003, KPMG considered solutions to remedy the criticisms of the council by the Charity Commission. They looked at the problems of poor governance, lack of charitable activity, and insufficient money to adequately maintain Highbury Hall. Council officers asked KPMG to look at selling part of the property to generate enough funds to make a permanent endowment for the Trust. At that time KPMG demonstrated that the proposed sale of the land would not provide sufficient funds to create an endowment. Yet council officers still seem to favour this option and a new study into other options has not been commissioned.
I believe the city council has a conflict of interest, in that it is both the sole trustee and the tenant of the property. It has not been able to put in place a formal lease between Highbury Trust and the city, instead the council has treated Highbury as its own asset.
As a result it has used the facilities without paying an economic rent that could have financed repairs. It also seems that none of the income from banqueting/wedding operations at Highbury has been returned to the Trust, going instead directly into council operating accounts. All this should have been corrected following the first intervention by the Charity Commission ten years ago, but there has been a lack of enforcement by them.
Last year, the council’s landscape department commissioned an historic landscape survey of the Trust and neighbouring Highbury Park that concluded: “A quality Victorian house and a quality Victorian garden surviving together is an extremely rare occurrence, not only in Birmingham, but in any major industrial centre.”
In my view the Highbury estate is far too valuable an entity, and too great an historical and environmental treasure for Birmingham, to be managed by a sole trustee. Of course the council should remain involved, but it should welcome and encourage community involvement. It needs us all to work together to turn Highbury around. New membership and a constitution for Highbury Trust should be on the agenda.
Local groups have developed a broad vision for Highbury Trust. They would like it to become a locally representative and truly independent charitable trust managing Highbury and its grounds to benefit the citizens of Birmingham, as Chamberlain wanted. The new trust would have objectives to further health promotion, education, poverty relief, community service and the protection of the environment.
The estate would be kept intact, have substantial amounts of charitable activity on the site, and operate as a social enterprise – an organisation that trades for the benefit of the community. To initiate this vision I hope Mary de Vere Taylor, as a descendent of Joseph Chamberlain, will be allowed to join the Board immediately.
Councillor John Alden, the chair of the council’s trusts and charities sub committee, announced recently that he was asking the council for £2.5 million in back rent for Highbury, against the advice of the Charity Commission. Best of luck to him, but I fear the council will take a long time to resolve this request. Unfortunately, Councillor Alden is yet to present any vision for Highbury Trust and how charitable activities can be sustained on the estate. He continues to ignore the advice, energy and expertise of local charities and community groups.
There is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed by the council to help retain at least one charitable activity on the site. Four Seasons, a small horticultural therapy group that is already based on the estate, is facing closure or relocation – something they are all against. This year the Council has made plans to vacate offices on the site that would leave Four Seasons without access to toilets. There is the opportunity to bring back into use one of the empty buildings on the estate to overcome the problem but only if Councillor Alden works with them.
The city council and the Charity Commission are to meet soon. There are many pressing estate management issues that need to be resolved urgently alongside the important matters of governance and membership of the board of Highbury Trust. The next meeting should not just be about making minor amendments to the current governance which has not served the Trust well and has led to the current state of affairs.
Let’s hope that Birmingham City Council and the Charity Commission will grasp the opportunity to transform Highbury Trust into an organisation Joseph Chamberlain would be proud of.
* Tony Thapar is spokesman for the Moseley Community Development Trust.
www.moseleycdt.com
