Wakehurst Place! 150,000 visitors!

[FamilyGuy]

NT subscribers visit NT gardens for free..
KEW/ WAKEHURST are not NT and have never been,.
....

This from the Internet: "Wakehurst Place is a National Trust property located near Ardingly, West Sussex in the High Weald of southern England, comprising a late 16th-century country house and a mainly 20th-century garden, "

 

[knocky1]

I have finally joined thanks to this thread. Googled cheap membership and found that 80,000 Scottish NT members live in England losing £1.5m to NT. When I read that you can be an even meaner culture viewer by joining the Zimbabwean Heritage Trust online for £10 and getting free access to all NT places, I thought enough is enough and paid £72 for year joint membership (free pair of crappy binoculars) to English NT.

I'm not paying the f****** parking though.

 

[LamieRobertson]

NT subscribers visit NT gardens for free..
KEW/ WAKEHURST are not NT and have never been,.
Kew survives amongst other things on charitable donations so NT members have been getting something for free...
If you decide that the seed bank,gardens are not worth the parking fee then maybe think about a yearly subscription for £ 25.
And maybe then you can relax in the knowledge that you have invested in the future..
It was free but now it needs to fight for its own future....

What the car park needs to fight for its future?

 

[Mr Putdown]

This from the Internet: "Wakehurst Place is a National Trust property located near Ardingly, West Sussex in the High Weald of southern England, comprising a late 16th-century country house and a mainly 20th-century garden, "

As is this: "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew currently maintains the gardens, woodlands and the Mansion at Wakehurst Place, in accordance with a lease from the National Trust."

 

[crasher]

Not according to the figures on their website they're not. They've lost about 50% of NT members but there's no lost revenue there as NT members didn't pay (and they get endowment from the NT regardless of the number of visitors) and the takings from shop/cafe have risen so they've substantially cut into their deficit

I don't understand. They said their deficit was substantially unchanged year on year.

And, with their audience base falling, where are they going to replace natural wastage from here on?

How can halving your visitor numbers be presented as a success?

 

[Gwylan]

How can halving your visitor numbers be presented as a success?

Well, they don't go into numbers but seeing there's been no change in the amount that non-NT members have to pay, we have to assume that all the change comes from NT members.

They say about 50% pay £5. so if we assume that there's an even split between those who pay £2 and those who pay £10 (although I suspect the latter is more frequent) then there's an average of £8.50 per NT member. If the figure of 150,000 is correct (and it's not on the website) then the place is taking £1.275 million per year extra. of course, there'll be admin costs associated with implementing parking fees and there'll be people taking advantage of the yearly ticket but I'm sure they're making a big dent in the deficit.

There's a lot of assumptions there but as they say they have no plans to go back to free parking, you can bet the move brings in a fair bit of dosh