Bridgwater and District Trades Council reacts to council’s decision over Dillington House

Dillington, near Ilminster, for many decades, has been Somerset’s centre for high-quality adult education courses on a wide range of subjects and craft activities, as well as training for the county’s teachers and other professions.

Delegates doubted that Somerset residents will continue to have access to this wide range of adult education if the council leaves their long-established centre.

Dillington House (Image: Submitted)

Bridgwater and District Trades Council secretary Dave Chapple said: “When the people of Somerset voted for the councillors who will represent them in Somerset’s new unitary authority clearly voted for change.

“For more than a decade they have suffered the ideology of continued cuts to public services driven by the Conservative-led county council, and they now expect to see a different approach.

“We urge all our councillors, and especially the ruling Lib-Dems, to explore ways in which they can continue to support this centre and all its activities, and not accept the decision of their executive to end the county council’s long and valued investment in this jewel in Somerset’s crown.”

It costs Somerset taxpayers around £2M a year to run Dillington House, which has struggled for many years to turn a profit.

Between 2009/10 and 2019/20, the venue accumulated a deficit of £1.8M, and is forecast to run a deficit of £502,000 in the current financial year.

The council pays £1,435 per year to rent the site as part of a 99-year lease with the Cameron Estate, which will officially end in 2062.

As part of this lease agreement, there are ‘break clauses’ available, allowing either party to get out of the lease early if the arrangement is no longer financially beneficial to them.

The next break clause point will be on March 25, 2023, with the council having to give six months’ notice before this date if it wants to end the lease.

If it does nothing, the council would have to wait until March 2043 – more than 20 years – before any further discussion regarding the lease could take place.

The issue was widely debated by the council’s executive committee when it met at County Hall in Taunton on Wednesday morning (September 21).

Councillor Sarah Wakefield, associate portfolio holder for development and assets, said she was confident that the council would be able to continue delivering adult education provision at other venues.

She said: “I think this has been a very difficult decision to come to, but I do think it is the right one. We do not need to run a wedding venue in my view, and I’m comforted that the other services can be moved to other venues.

“If we can’t agree a variation in time, then we will serve the break notice and have further discussions. It’s comforting that the landlord is willing to have further discussions – I don’t think he’s willing for us to high-tail out of there.”

Councillor Ros Wyke, portfolio holder for development and assets, concurred: “Over the last ten years or so, the previous administration worked very hard to find a viable and effective solution to running this house and the courses. I’m totally convinced we can find alternative locations for these courses.

“Life has moved on. The family is very happy to take back the building and no doubt will have plans for the future. I have no doubt that the building and the landscape will be cared for.

“We’re not in the business of running wedding venues and estates. We will leave graciously from the house – we have met our commitments to the wedding parties, we will support the staff through a very difficult process.”

Paula Hewitt, the council’s acting chief executive, said the various additional pressures on council staff had made it difficult to bring forward a proposal any sooner.

She explained: “This has been very compressed. There were a whole load of mitigating reasons for this.

“We’ve had Covid, we’ve had elections, we’re in the middle of a transformation and local government reorganisation, we’ve had the Ofsted inspection, and we needed to get communications right to the staff before they came out in the public forum. We will ensure this is slicker and smoother in the future.”