Packed 5 hour AGM for National Trust for Scotland

The Daily Mail has said that Argyll’s Arduaine Garden, to be closed by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) as part of a cost cutting exercise affecting 11 NTS properties, is to close in three weeks.

Repeated efforts by For Argyll and other news media to get some indication from NTS of the plans for the future of the garden and for the timescale of its closure have met only with the response that nothing can be said until there is something to say.

For Argyll then published some authoritative locally sourced information that Arduaine was to close in seven weeks and would not be allowed, as had been anticipated, to see out the coming season first.

The Daily Mail’s article is notable for giving no accreditation of its source for the quoted closure date of three weeks and the rest of the piece is recycled material on the garden drawn from other publications.

While this casts doubt on the authenticity of the three-weeks-to-closure announcement, it may add weight to the general perception in Argyll that Arduaine’s accessibility to the public may have a short time to run.

There has been widespread anxiety and anger in Argyll over the management of this decision by the NTS. This has been manifest in emails to For Argyll and in letters to local and national papers.

For Argyll has suggested a community buy out. A resident of the Isle of Seil, Sheila Downie, in a letter to The Herald, has suggested that Arduaine could be re-opened on a care-and-maintenance basis under the current head gardener, Maurice Wilkins, covered by visitor revenues. Ms Downie sees this being done under the Scotland’s Garden Scheme.

Fears over pace of National Trust closure of Argyll’s Arduaine Gardens

Posted on March 13, 2009 by

With the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) remaining resolutely silent and unresponsive to calls for answers from the media, local rumours are running high in Argyll over the details of the planned closure of Arduaine Garden.

Staff were informed of the decision in parallel with the release of information to the Press, giving them no chance to absorb the personal and professional impact on their lives before everyone else got the news.

When the planned closure was made public, it was assumed that Arduaine would see out the coming season before closing – largely because this would be a logical business perspective.

However it is now thought that the Garden is to close in around seven weeks time.

Maurice Wilkins, who leads the team at Arduaine, currently running its Snowdrop Festival, has worked there for around 25 years and lives in a tied house in the Gardens. The impact on all aspects of his life must be utterly disorientating and unnerving.

As For Argyll has reported, the sceptical view is that the new regime at NTS was already planning the status chage to the eleven properties concerned, as part of its restructure-to-survive strategy and used the cover of the recessionto do it now.

Whether or not this is the case – and its plausibility is supported by the time plans of this nature would take to produce – the NTS have handled the annoucement very badly.

NTS management thinking does not seem to have embraced the different consequences of closing a property and a garden. A property to be completely closed can be mothballed. A garden can not. In the case of Arduaine, the qustions to be asked involve first the situatiuon of the staff and then the position of the garden itself.

Will Mr Wilkins be given adequate time to arrange to leave his tied house?
Will all staff at Arduaine Garden be offered the opportunity to transfer to other NTS gardens?
Will the garden revert to another ownership? And, if so, to whose ownership?
Will it be sold? And if so in what timescale?

Should the Garden be sold, this would seem an obvious candidate for an energetic community buy out. The expertise to run the garden is there already. With the renowned and wonderfully located Loch Melfort Hotel next door, the conjunction of the two could be very profitably developed and marketed.

Every crisis is an opportunity.

National Trust for Scotland to change status of 11 properties – including closure of Argyll’s Arduaine Gardens

Posted on March 6, 2009 by

Loch Melfort at Arduiaine Yesterday For Argyll reported that the National Trust for Scotland is shedding around 90 jobs in a restructuring to deal with the recession and falling revenues.

Today, as they promised, the Trust released plans to revise the status of 11 of its 130 properties, as part of the same restructuring.

Some properties are to be closed, some to be converted for residential purposes to earn money, some to be moved to external funding and sponsorship.

Of these 11 properties, one is in Argyll and it is one of those slated to be closed. It is the famous and much loved Arduaine Garden at Loch Melfort in Mid Argyll. Arduaine is renowned for its collection of exotic plants and at this moment is hosting its Snowdrop Festival, which runs until 16th March. Arduaine is also one of the ‘Glorious Gardens of Argyll’, marketing themselves jointly to garden visitors.

The statement released by the NTS makes no reference to when Arduaine may be closed nor of what may happen to it. For Argyll is pursuing the matter and will report on it as soon as possible.

The total list of properties affected and the specific decisions taken on each of them is:

The David Livingstone Centre at Blantyre will no longer be managed by NTS and will be returned to its Trustees unless the full deficit of the property is funded externally.
Hill of Tarvit Mansion House in Fife is to close and the property is to be let to a suitable tenant. However the gardens and estate would be maintained and remain open to the public.
Leith Hall House, NW of Aberdeen, is to be closed to visitors, with the the property converted into permanent residential use to meet the cost of managing the estate and garden, which will remain open to the public.
Barry Mill in Angus is to be offered for external funding or sponsorship. If this does not materialise, it will be closed.
Hugh Miller’s Cottage in Cromarty is also to be offered for external funding or sponsorship to avoid closure.
Kellie Castle in Fife will in future be operated by local volunteers provided that the castle’s deficit can be resolved. If this cannot be achieved the castle will be closed to visitors, with the gardens remaining open to the public.
Haddo House in Aberdeen will change focus to specialise solely on functions, events and pre-booked tours. The shop, tearoom and gardens will remain open to the public, in conjunction with the country park.
Hutchesons’ Hall in Glasgow will be let to a suitable long term tenant.
Arduaine Garden in Argyll is to close.
Inveresk Garden in East Lothian is to close.
Ben Lawers Mountain Visitor Centre in Perth is to close.

Kate Mavor, Chief Executive of the National Trust for Scotland says of these decisions: ‘We are making some difficult decisions today about some of our properties that are making a loss as part of our overall cost saving programme.

‘We will make every effort to work with our staff and external partners to minimise the changes to these properties. Our members and supporters can rest assured that we will only propose closure, or in the case of the David Livingstone Centre, relinquish management of a property, if it is absolutely necessary.

‘However the Trust is firm in its belief that doing nothing about the affects of the economic downturn is simply not an option’.

The photograph above shows the view from Loch Melfort Hotel, beside Arduaine Garden which is to the immediate right. It was taken by Mike and Kirsty Grundy and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.

Snowdrop tips ? great days out (telegraph.co.uk)
Rhododendrons ‘should be culled to save UK gardens’ National Trust warns (telegraph.co.uk)

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