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AOSA ANNUAL REPORT 1999 |
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Last year I wrote at some length about the closure of the School: now twelve months on a much briefer update. Over the year we have been tidying up loose ends. Ayton School Committee acted as Trustees for a number of small charities which gave bursaries to pupils; each of these has now been separated and passed on to other Trustees in accordance with the charity deeds. We have passed the Jenny Donaldson Bursary and Sir John Pease Fry Prize to The Mount, the Thomas Richardson and Wennington Bursaries to Ackworth, the Edward Walton and Brian Hepworth Bursaries to Bootham; a time consuming if interesting exercise. There have also been numerous other minor things to deal with, from trying to stop unsolicited mail to getting the gas turned off, all seemingly simple but sometimes apparently impossible. The sale of the property was finally completed in early November when Wimpey Homes received the planning permission; the monies received are now on their way to Meeting for Sufferings. This body decided in July to return, to a family trust of the donor, the half million pounds I mentioned last year, but will not decide until next year where the rest is to go. The work of the Trustees is now almost complete but there will be some administration to do for a number of years yet and the Trust will have to remain in being. We are seeking to amend the Trusts to reduce the Trustees to three from Durham General Meeting and three from AOSA to be more in keeping with the workload. Finally, the site itself; there will be 61 dwellings. The buildings facing High Green and Station Road are to be converted, leaving the fascias largely unaltered. There will be six new houses in the Biology Lab area and three new blocks in the centre of the site, one by the Coach Road and one each side of the path to girls’ bridge facing out over the river. Top field is to become a cricket and football club, the tennis courts and the area between them and the ford will be private recreational land for the development, while the old lake area of bottom field beyond this will be public access land. Most of the unwanted buildings have now been demolished, but Old Scholars will, I’m sure, be pleased to know that the conversions will retain such names as Richardson, Afton and Rawdon in their addresses, and the three new blocks will be named Firbank, Swarthmore and Pendle. Robert Campbell
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