National Trust want visitors to dig deep for the maintenance of Pen Y Fan

[Dyffryn Ardudwy]

Some years ago, i remember watching a programme on the running of the National Trust, and the particular purchase and maintenance of a large building somewhere in Surrey.
I forget the name of the property or its location,  but the trust blew nearly £42M in the restoration of this property, but treated their staff with contempt.


The two gardeners looking after the property, who had been in the Trusts employment for many years, were in dire need of new equipment, because their spades, and the rest of their gardening portfolio, were way past their prime, and one of the gardeners had to use tape to mend the handle of his shears.


Every time they asked for small amounts of cash to buy necessaries, those in charge pondered for several months, until eventually a small cheque was issued to buy the much needed supplies.


The properties trustees, all National trust senior management used to spend their committee meetings in this very plush hotel, wining and dining at considerable expense, and writing cheques for the property in the millions, yet the staff had to wait months to receive basic equipment costing very little.


The point i am trying to make, is that the National Trust are asking the 350,000 or so visitors who visited Pen Y Fans  Pont Y Daf carpark, last year, to cough up around £300,000 to maintain the heavily eroded paths up the mountain.


Had i not seen the waste and burocracy of the National Trust, then i may have thought that the asking the public for handouts was justified, but my mind has been changed.




I know the National Trust have to maintain a considerable number of stately homes and other properties, so their coffers are not a bottomless pit, but that television programme some years ago, opened my eyes, on the vast sums of  money that they casually spend on single properties, as well as the significant expenditure that goes on wining and dining.


Will i be digging deep to maintain Pen Y Fan ?  maybe not.

[sussamb]

That works out at about a £1 a visitor, I'd gladly give that 

[jimbob]

  Ditto Sussamb

[Dyffryn Ardudwy]

If the Trust didn't waste so much of their revenue, they would not be asking non trust members to pay for the maintenance of the main Beacons.
I agree, a single £1 coin is not a lot for an afternoons enjoyment, but now knowing the amount of money they waste unnecessarily, its money they should not be asking for.

[fernman]

The point i am trying to make, is that the National Trust are asking the 350,000 or so visitors who visited Pen Y Fans  Pont Y Daf carpark, last year, to cough up around £300,000 to maintain the heavily eroded paths up the mountain.

You are probably right about the NT, Dai, except for your point of how they are going to raise the money. My impression from reading the article in the news was that the NT were going to make a general appeal to raise the money from the public, much in the same way, I assume, that they have done in the past to purchase bits of land.

[phil1960]

Just to throw something else in to the mix, they say it’s some 200m of path needs work and when repaired should last 6 years, so clearly it’s an on going process. Am I willing to cough up? Yes probably, although I’m more concerned with the state of the less popular paths in the park than the tourist routes.

[barewirewalker]

I have had reservations about the NT, the part that puts on it's public face is all touch/feely, but we never hear about the arm of the NT that runs their estates and sets the rents for their commercial properties, quite large farms that were parts of estates, owned by the hereditary landowners the took the estates over from when they were bequested the country houses that fronted the estates.


As I understand these are run by the same sort of green welly brigade, Cirencester educated estate agent types that run the MoD estates, who never re-instated the RoWs lost during the war years.

[Mel]

   The National Trust have lots of permissive paths over land which would otherwise be out of bounds had the green wellie plum in gob brigade still owned it.


As for raising money to repair paths.  Aye, the NT may have funds from memberships and donations in wills, etc. but they divvy those funds into primarily restoration and maintenance of the properties.  Funding for ancilliary tasks has to come from elsewhere (cafes, begging bowls).  All that fine wining, dining and sixty nine-ing is just to butter up potential injectors of cash to part with said dosh.

[phil1960]

“Sixty nine-ing”? 

[Annejacko]

I hadn't read about this so looked up the Trusts appeal

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/appeal/brecon-beacons-appeal

I see it as no different to something like giving to Fix the Fells.

Could the National Trust make better use of their income or be better landlords? I don't know enough to comment.
As with any other Charity appeal it's down to individuals to decide to which causes they'd like to donate money and/or time to.

[Glyno]

“Sixty nine-ing”? 

<snigger>

[barewirewalker]

   The National Trust have lots of permissive paths over land which would otherwise be out of bounds had the green wellie plum in gob brigade still owned it.

 
It is quite difficult to get information about ownership of land and many landowners have disguised the identity by forming companies etc. In my own neck of the woods I have a fairly clear idea about the land that was bequeathed to the Attingham Estate, when the last Lady Berwick died, the immediate parkland around the Hall has been made into a very popular area for public access, though at a cost and is probably on of the NT's most successful ventures for maintaining the hall and it's collection.  

 
As far as I have managed to find out, in casual questioning, the several 1000 acres of farm land owned by NT is managed by a separate part of NT, in Swindon. A large part of that estate has a substantial network of footpaths, mapped from the 1880's up to the 1940's by the OS. Within the park and close to the hall, there is a bench with a memorial plaques to a Gordon Miller. Gordon Miller, served and was injured in WW1, he became a Land Agent acting for the then Lord Berwick and lived in a fairly large Estate house, he also ran at least 6 other estates around Shrewsbury. It is popularly thought by many local landowners that GM used his position as chairman of the Shrewsbury and Atcham Rural District Council, which he held for may years over the period of the formation of the Definitive Map, that he 'scrubbed out' many footpaths, which should have been rights of way.

 
Land agents will have access to 1-25inch OS maps as a matter of course, the footpaths that the OS survey have recorded are part of the plates that these maps were printed from. So the Corruption of the Definitive Map must be evident to any Estate Agent today, who has access to those maps where parts of an old access network has been left off.  

 
Two tenant farmers on the Attingham Estate tried to join together to create a Permissive Way around their farms as part of Natural England scheme to encourage the creation of permissive ways at the cost of 5 years of subsidies out of out taxes. I doubt it was cost effective yet if the old ways had been re-opened it would have gone a long way to opening up a continuous way, through countryside, across Shropshire. Instead of the long stretches of tarmac on busy B roads, which are the alternatives.

 
The National Trust has one of the most obvious cases of the Corruption of the Definitive Map under it's ownership and a classic example of how a modern thinking on sharing the countryside could benefit both agriculture and the leisure industry, but there commercial side cannot see it, because they are steeped in the classic landowner mentality of the 18th century.

[Mel]

I think the National Trust does a great job in preserving our history and past and also creating managed ways of enjoying that history which might otherwise be inaccessible.  I don't think land owners are always the bad guys that you make them out to be so I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree BWW.

[barewirewalker]

I don't think land owners are always the bad guys that you make them out to be so I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree BWW.

I suppose the thing I have most difficulty in understanding is how so many have missed the intellectual delinquency of the primary author and editor in chief of the 2012 policy on Access published by landowners, especially with the connection that landowner has with a major archaeological feature so closely intertwined with walking access.


I find it difficult to trust NT because their commercial section is almost certainly a contributor to the CLA and the dichotomy of these two identities are at odds with their underlying principles.


As a Salopian I live and have been bought up in the largest inland county, I can see more clearly than most that this county of Shropshire cannot be walked or ridden across in a way that gives access to the best it's countryside has to offer.


There are 8 corridors of access (in Shropshire) that should allow people to fully explore the county and cross it, supported by key features of infrastructure, but it is the notion of private estates, which are an edifice to countryside access during the 17th and 18th century and are now those areas that block the development of a modern 21st century access network.


And a servant of National Trust, Gordon Miller, now feted as a hero of the trust, was the primary architect of the corruption of the definitive map of Shropshire and now occupies central stage in the problem Shropshire has in being unable to create an access network, which should be a jewel in the crown for all the country.

[jimbob]

BWW organise a continously mass trespass walking the ways you say have been stolen. That way it will attract publicity and maybe even a court case resulting in a change in the law. Take a leaf out if Barbara Castle and her friends book. If you feel so strongly do something about it.

  Personally I also have never had a problem with landowners or with adhering to the officially recognised ROWS but if needs be I walk to where I need to whilst adhering to the country code and commonsense use of the land. I often chat to farmers and gamekeepers on these walks , they tend to be helpful.