See the Savoy Stewart listing for this education premises on NovaLoca here.

Almost every week for the last 2 years we have seen stories in the press of private school closures.

According to the Independent Schools Council around 144 schools have permanently closed their doors since 2024 when VAT was introduced on private school fees.

Whilst people are often surprised that the addition of 20% on school fees has made such a difference, this is only the published headline and does not paint a true picture of the reasons behind many of these closures.

In addition to the imposition of VAT on school fees, the government also decided to remove the charitable status that many private schools benefitted from. This status gave discounts to schools of around 80% on their business rates and one of the things this enabled private schools to do was to offer bursaries to pupils who were able to pass the schools entrance exams but whose parents were unable to afford the full fees.

A direct result of this policy has been the reduction in the number of bursaries offered because schools have had to subsidise existing pupils and swallow some of the VAT increases to try and retain the pupils they have.

There are now an estimated 30,000 additional pupils in the state system and with the cost of state education estimated to be £8,500 per pupil, taxpayers are likely to be paying around £250m per year to educate pupils that were previously educated privately.

Whilst the government estimated the revenue from the removal of charitable relief on business rates was estimated to raise around £70-£90m per annum. This still leaves a substantial loss.

It seems that one of the things the government did not consider was that this would be particularly hard hitting in in rural areas where schools can be set in large grounds but might have less than 100 pupils on the register. Most of these schools occupied older country house style buildings which were Listed and therefore exempt from paying business rates when they become vacant.

So far, no figures have been published on how much revenue has been raised by the removal of charitable relief on business rates but given how many of these schools have closed, we expect that the figure may be nowhere near the windfall that was predicted.

As many parents know, there was always a desire to be in the catchment area of good secondary or grammar schools and this has now become even more important with the number of pupils fighting for these coveted places having increased dramatically.

In addition, because there are very few new schools being built, class sizes in the state sector (which have no maximum limits) are having to increase to cope with these additional pupils yet figures published in August 2026 show a reduction in the number of teachers (excluding SEN) of around 3,400 teachers for the year.

The knock-on effect can only be a reduction in the standards of education across the state sector for all pupils with private schools becoming more elitist.

It is now clear that this was not a well thought out plan and that it is detrimental for both the private and state sector.

The other issues that are then being faced are the fact that these schools are often located in areas where there is little demand for alternative uses or where it does not make financial sense to convert the buildings into residential usage due to the high conversions costs that are being seen and lower capital values due to a lack of demand in these areas.

There are now empty schools across the country looking to be repurposed with many of them being sold at knockdown prices by administrators who want to try and recover funds as quickly as possible.

Whilst this may be presenting opportunities for the brave with investors that have deep pockets being able to secure properties at below the market rates it will take many years to resolve a problem that arguably should never have been created in the first place.

Savoy Stewart are commercial property advisors have been advising the Education and religious sectors on property matters since 1990.

You can see all of the available commercial property listed by Savoy Stewart on Novaloca here.

www.savoystewart.co.uk

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