DAVID B Price’s letter (July 19) expresses understandably forceful concern in the face of potential change at the National Trust for Scotland’s Geilston House and Garden.
As has been conveyed to local stakeholders, no decision has been made about Geilston House’s future and our review carries on until October. However, change there must be.
Despite Geilston’s beauty, charm and local amenity value, it attracts less than 800 paying visitors a year. We are open to alternatives for the future, but only in the clear-eyed context of hard reality and not wishful thinking. The status quo at Geilston is unsustainable. Our latest forecast for the property shows an operating deficit of £91,661 for this financial year. It has averaged losses of around £85,000 in previous years.
It may be argued that this is a situation of the trust’s own making, albeit with the best of the intentions. Geilston was bequeathed on an unrestricted basis – it was actually the trust’s choice to open the garden to the public in the 1990s (the house has never been open) rather than sell it on to generate funds.
Similarly, there never has been an endowment fund for Geilston – no conditions were attached to the estate and it was left to the trust to decide how to use the funds. Indeed, we have been using the residue to cover Geilston’s deficit but, once again, this is simply untenable in the long run.
As a charity we have to make difficult decisions every day about what we spend our funds on. Unlike comparable organisations, we cannot rely on state support – £97 in every £100 we spend we have to raise ourselves from fees, commercial activity and generous donations. Mr Price and others point to faults and weaknesses in the trust but the “re-structuring” he decries is designed to overcome these and free up funds that have enabled us to target investment in our estate which makes it more engaging and attractive to more people. This in turn brings more income that we can re-invest in other properties.
But we will only invest in projects that have a meaningful return in conservation and visitor enjoyment terms. The suggested uses of Geilston House that Mr Price alludes to would require millions of pounds and offer no guarantee of additional visitors to a property with limited heritage significance.
The trust has never been wedded to a one-size-fits-all approach to the management of its properties and we need to find a solution for Geilston that is practicable and sustainable. Whatever that solution turns out to be, Mr Price can be assured that a decision will be taken.
Keith Halstead,
Head of Special Projects,
The National Trust for Scotland,
Hermiston Quay,
5 Cultins Road,
I WAS speaking to a friend from Sofia in Bulgaria recently who has recently relocated to Glasgow.
He stated that Glasgow was the filthiest place that he has ever been to and I found myself unable to disagree with him.
Clearly the citizens of Glasgow have to shoulder some of the blame as they would seem to be responsible for the litter in the first place, but there simply cannot be enough manual street sweepers or well-positioned litter bins otherwise the city centre wouldn't be such a mess.
Those council employees zipping around in their street cleaning vehicles simply cannot access litter up lanes, underneath cars, and so on, which is where the litter often deposits itself.
Can anything be done to tidy up our once beautiful city centre?
Craig Cummine,
6 Dunblane Street,
Glasgow.
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