Sky the limit for university’s rent payment
THE university with the highest-paid vice-chancellor in the UK spent £2,000 on an elaborate parachute ceremony to deliver its council rent.
The University of Bath has already been widely criticised for the £450,000 salary paid to Dame Glynis Breakwell, who will step down next year amid pressure from staff.
But institution chiefs have come in for renewed criticism after it emerged they paid £2,122 to hire a skydiver from the Red
Devils Parachute Regiment’s free fall team as part of an aerial display.
The university pays a single peppercorn each year to the city council as ground rent for the 999-year lease at the Claverton Down campus as part of an agreement dating back to 1964. The peppercorn is usually handed to the authority in a silver box, but this year was handed over in a parachute display on the University’s 50th anniversary festival on May 6, which cost £62,500.
Now local councillors are calling for the university to contribute more to council coffers. Will Sandry, a Liberal Democrat councillor on Bath and North East Somerset council, said the wealthy institution was “having its cake and eating it”. “They operate as a business, get a multi-million pound government grant and have all the benefits of being a charity. This means they receive a large discount on business rates.” Bob Goodman, a Conservative councillor, called for a review of the peppercorn arrangement.
“Every time we lose a family house to a student [house of multiple occupation] or an office building converted to student accommodation, the council lose significant revenue in council tax and business rates – costing many millions of pounds,” he said.