I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. I've namechanged as this is pretty specific.
About 8 years ago, the primary school my son attends applied for a SureStart capital grant from the county council, specifically for the construction of a mobile classroom to house a pre-school and an after-school club. As far as we are aware, the grant was specifically made on the basis that it be used to fund this building.
Since then, the school has converted to an academy. The school are now saying they want to charge the pre-school and after-school club rent on the building, at a level which would put both out of business. For the last 8 years, no rent has been charged. The school is claiming that all the money will be set aside to fund the building of a new mobile classroom in 30 years time (when the current building reaches the end of its useful life). However, the level of rent they are asking for would pay for a new mobile at least 3 times over (at today's prices). Maintenance, utilities, repairs etc are paid separately already, and the school have confirmed that the rent would be on top of these.
The after-school club have asked the school for a copy of the original grant application and terms of the grant, and the school say these have been lost. They are currently trying to get the information from the county council (under an FOI request), but as it is so long ago, it's not clear that the council still have copies themselves.
In the meantime, we've looked up some details of similar grants, and almost all of them have the same clawback clause - ie, if the building is not used for the purpose for which the grant was made, the grant will have to be repaid.
My question is
a) Can the school actually charge rent in this situation? It's not clear to me that they actually own the building (they have no control over its use, have to repay the grant if its not used for the pre-school / after-school club), although it appears that when it converted to an academy it was included in their assets.
b) If the pre-school and after-school club refuse to pay, do they have any legal recourse or right of use?
Any help anyone could give would be much appreciated.