For the academic year 2007 to 2008 Central Government is spending, on average, across the whole age range, £5,430 per pupil per year. Whether you agree with the philosophy of independent education or not, it is an undeniable fact that parents paying for private education means the state is not. With 800 pupils for this coming year in our school, being privately funded and not state funded for their education, means our parents are saving Central Government around £4.33m per year. All the current comment to do with Independent Schools justifying their existence to retain their Charitable status does NOT apply to us. Our School is a limited company owned by a Trust. We are NOT a school which is a registered charity.

Local road infrastructure upgrade
When we realised our consistent growth would mean the road from the Boroughbridge road to our school would need upgrading we agreed to pay 100% of the cost. This means we are spending £1.2m and not one single penny is coming from the tax payers purse. Yes of course it benefits us but it also benefits everyone else who will use the road.

Local telephone and broadband infrastructure upgrade
We have paid £170,000 to BT to upgrade the local phone and broadband circuits to fibre optic. Once again of course this benefits us but these new fibre optic cables also carry telephone services and internet broadband services for the local community. Fibre optic cabling is much more efficient and far better quality than the traditional old copper cables. Under normal circumstances a local country setting would still be relying on old out-dated copper wires.

Local Post Office
The Post Office is closing small village post offices throughout the country. We believe our local post office has been spared closure due in part to the fact that it is a sub-sorting office for mail to the Estate. Each day we receive thousands of letters and each year post over 2 million letters and parcels.

Electricity Supply Infrastructure
As we have grown over the years, even with all our energy conservation programmes, our demand for electricity has grown. Because of this NEDL has installed new, high quality, three phase cables to the Estate. This of course benefits us but it has also meant numerous other people en route have been able to have 3 phase electricity supply when they only had single phase previously.

Water Supply Infrastructure
Over the years, as with electricity, our usage grew. As a result of this Yorkshire Water replaced all the local pipe work to the whole area to provide a higher quality and more reliable supply of water. Subsequent to this the Estate decided to invest in a capital programme of being self-sustainable in its consumption of water. We sunk boreholes and installed water purification equipment. Now we take no water from the national water grid. The local area still benefits from the new pipe work put in and has even better water pressure as we take no supply.

Sanitation
The Estate has invested heavily in a modern totally eco-friendly sanitation system. We use no chemicals in the treatment of our waste water. All the waste water leaving the Estate is considerably better quality than the testing requirements imposed upon us.