Development Report:
Estates Committee of the Governing Body went into
this over a number of years to make absolutely sure
we got it right. The total cost was projected at around
£50m. The new Sports Centre will cost £40million
and clearly fundraising will play an important part.
We predicted that fundraising could provide
around £10-25m and the school would meet the
balance from its own resources. The school itself had
£10m in hand to contribute, which has allowed the
project to get to site. With this information in mind,
the school has also completed a £40m borrowing,
repayable in 40 years’ time and with an interest rate
of 2.73%. Although the amount borrowed happens
to be similar to the cost of KP, the loan was not
taken out specifically for this purpose, but rather to
put the school in a strong position to manage all its
various cash flows, including not only KP but also the
proceeds of Barton Farm and bursary support. So we
set off with our usual passion. The support has been
wonderful. So far, we have had pledges of £18.9m
and we are pushing ahead to get to our £25m target.
As all of you will have seen from the Wykeham
Journal, there has been a steady increase in Winchester’s
involvement with the natural world over the last
10 years — an involvement that perhaps began with
the creation of Fallodon, our own nature reserve,
100 years ago. In recent years we have recruited a
Duncan Louis Stewart Fellow in Natural History
and opened the wonderful Cameron Bespolka
Outdoor Classroom, both entirely funded by the
generosity of donors. This strong environmental
consciousness led to a priority being given to
sustainability in designing and building the new sports
facilities. The interview with the Director of Design
Engine, the architects on the project, highlights how
they have ensured that it will be a building that we can
be proud of and fit for purpose in the 21st Century.
One question which often comes up is the use
of the Barton Farm proceeds. William of Wykeham
set up Winchester College with an endowment,
much of which was in land. The current value of
the endowment is £262m of which approximately
40% is the unrealised value of Barton Farm. This
is a big residential development project currently
being built on the north-west edge of Winchester,
and selling at a rate of about one house per week.
Winchester receives a flow of money from this
development which is expected to continue for
several years. GoBo has ring-fenced the whole of
these proceeds entirely for future bursary provision.
n ick fe rgu son
Finally I would want to note one particularly
important event during 2019, namely the creation
of the Warden Sinclair Fund on the retirement
of Charles Sinclair. This has been given extra
weight by a most generous matching donor.
This dedicated Fund has been established to help
those boys receiving bursarial support to take full
advantage of everything Winchester has to offer,
beyond school fees. Help can now be offered for
educational trips, music lessons, travel to interviews,
sports kit, IT and exam fees.
Given our desire to increase bursaries, and
a steady flow of capital projects, the development
task at Winchester is an unending one. Each
year our target is to raise a minimum of £3m,
the majority of which is for the support of
bursaries; capital projects such as the KP project
obviously come on top of that. The fact that we
succeed each year is attributable not just to the
hard work of the team, but also to the obvious
deep affection that so many of you have for
Winchester College. For that my colleagues
and I are continually grateful.
The Wykeham Journal 2019 49