Howard's Company in modern times

Insight Editor Terry Gray attempts to dispel some of the myths surrounding Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation in a special feature...

Where else in the country do the residents and businesses of a town receive a daily dose of 'supplementary benefit' from a private company, which in turn adds significant added value to the quality of their working or home lives?

The 33,000 population of the world's first Garden City and its workforce are in a unique position - they are served by the Local Authority, North Herts District Council, as well as by Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, a rather complex organisation conceived by an Act of Parliament and basically labelled by many, as the 'guardians' of the town.

The Heritage Foundation was set-up in 1995 as successor to Letchworth Garden City Corporation, which was a public sector 'quango' , rather than the Heritage Foundation, which is firmly in the private sector. Perhaps curiously, however, the Foundation is closer to the community than the Corporation ever was. Up to 30 Foundation Governors, comprising local people, act as the public's 'sounding board' on any aspect of the town and they also elect from their numbers six of the eight Board of Management members from their numbers, who ultimately make the major decisions within the Foundation.

Both companies emanated from First Garden City Ltd, the brainchild of town founder and social visionary Ebenezer Howard, who with others, started this company nearly 100 years ago. Howard's philosophy of bringing town and country together as a magnet for healthy living and his blueprint for the original Letchworth, is increasingly heralded and copied by more and more places and town planners around the world today - and will probably be for time immemorial.

Howard conceived the town as a reaction to the industrial revolution in Britain, with its belching chimneys, grime and filth and appalling living conditions for most of its people. It was a move away from the depressing, back-to-back housing and overcrowded conditions of the Victorian era. To its founders, it was a realistic and achievable attempt to integrate town and country - and it worked!

Undoubtedly, the Heritage Foundation, Howard's company in modern times, is perceived as somewhat of an enigma. Uniquely, it is a charity AND a £107m property company - by far and away the largest landowner and property developer in the town. How can the two equate?

Put simply, the answers lie in the Act, which determines that all the profits from the Garden City Estate whether they be from rental income from commercial, industrial and retail customers, (millions of pounds every year), or from the Foundation's farming activities are directed back to the town through the Foundation's six charitable objects. The decisions on how, where and when the added values are returned to the town, are in the hands of the unpaid Board of Management and with the Foundation's Executive Directors.

The Foundation's ongoing charitable activities includes the funding and managing of Plinston Hall, a multi-complex leisure centre, The Ernest Gardiner Day Hospital, Broadway Cinema, First Garden City Heritage Museum, Standalone, the popular educational farm and a minibus service to transport the elderly and disabled, to name just a few.

Hundreds of clubs, organisations, schools and individuals pursuing their own special goals in life, have received appropriate grant aid from the Heritage Foundation over the last seven plus years.

In fact, for its six years, the Heritage Foundation returned to the community over £8.5m - equating to nearly £4,000 per day - by way of charitable activities and the momentum continues unabated, especially with the town's Centenary looming.

Benefits are also returned to improve the 5,300 acre Estate with many successful environmental projects, (including the £1m Greenway which encircles the Estate), the building, maintaining or refurbishing of new/existing factories and shops etc.. addressing social housing needs, helping schools in practical terms, holding fun and celebratory events for the townsfolk, policing and effecting 'planning' measures and initiatives which mirror and develop the town's original ethos, architectural heritage grants - and much, much more.

An example of a major development and success story over the last few years by the Foundation, has been the £10m restoration of the famous Spirella Building which Prince Charles opened in January 1999. This high-tech, magnificent 86,000 sq ft building is packed with office tenants who, 24/7, enjoy the building being manned with the latest IT technological help on hand. Also, and much more recently, the Nexus Building in the town centre, formerly a run down 1960's throwback development, was tastefully restored at a cost of nearly £5m and is already 50 per cent let.

Heading up the whole operation on a daily basis is the Foundation's Director General Stuart Kenny, a 53 year-old economist, who was headhunted for the job when the change from the Corporation was being mooted nearly eight years ago. He was Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Leeds Development Corporation at the time.

Not everyone realises the Foundation's extraordinarily range of business activities. It currently operates through six legal entities, which between them embraces 18 enterprises, employing some 150 staff. Their collective skills include nursing, tourism, forestry, catering, driving, farming, environmental planning, surveying, publicity, finance etc...

The Heritage Foundation is intent on carrying on its progressive and meaningful policies, to improve where needed, to build and develop where appropriate, to keep up the town's standards and to help out where there are genuine needs... and hopefully to dispel the myths that sometimes are directed at it.

Terry Gray is the Heritage Foundation's PR & Media Manager 01462 476055 terryg@letchworth.com  Insight magazine is the Heritage Foundation's full colour magazine, which is delivered free to all Letchworth residences. Copies are also available at the Heritage Foundation's Tourist Information, 33-35 Station Road in the heart of the town centre.