The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
Outrage at National Trust’s ‘stealth price rises’
Visitors to some of Britain’s historic homes lash out at ‘per-occupant’ car parking charges and inflexible tickets. Will Kirkman reports
he National Trust is causing outrage by charging “extortionate” entrance fees to its properties and risks losing custom as a result, visitors and campaigners have warned.
The charity has streamlined entrance fees for non-members into a single charge at numerous sites, removing the popular option to pay just to access grounds or gardens.
In some cases this has been combined with changes to parking prices, which, at certain sites, now charge per person in each car, rather than per vehicle.
The changes mean that visitors who just want to vist a site’s café now cannot do so without paying an entrance fee for the whole property.
Visitors to many of the National Trust’s historic sites have flooded this newspaper with letters of complaint about the entry fee changes in recent weeks.
Art historian Bendor Grosvenor said the changes were effectively price increases that would put the public off visiting Britain’s historic sites.
“The trust’s recent restructuring and changes they’ve introduced to historic house opening times already risked putting people off visiting,” he said. “Any new price increases that come into effect, whether by stealth or otherwise, will only make things worse.”
A spokesman for Restore Trust, a campaign group of National Trust members, said many viewed the changes as “unfair”. She added: “The National Trust needs to consult members and local people on this issue.”
Visitors to the National Trust’s Dunham Massey grounds in Cheshire used to be able to pay a single parking charge. However, it has now changed its policy so that each adult in a car must pay £8, which also grants them admission to the property itself.
Visitor Tim Banks, from Knutsford in Cheshire, said: “We were told that each adult in the car must pay £8, 8, but that this was great value as it included uded access to the house.
“Access to the grounds only was s not an option. We parked on the road d and walked in. Is the trust trying to recover cover lost revenue with these unreasonable nable charges?”
Previously the site charged £7 7 per car, and nothing if any adult in the e car was a member of the trust.
It now costs a group of four £32 32 to park and enter the site, whereas as previously the total charge was just st £7. However, the new system grants ts admission to the entire site; before e the change visitors had to pay y extra to visit the gardens, house e and estate.
The National Trust said: “The e current single admission price ce grants non- members entry to the whole of each site, which we think nk is great value for a full day out compared pared with other local attractions and heritage sites.”
Lyme Park, also in Cheshire, , has adopted a similar parking pricing cing policy.
The trust added that 95pc of the land it looked after was free to access. It said there was no trust-wide change to pricing policy, but confirmed that some sites had changed their fees to “simplify admission or bring them in line with other local attractions”.
“As a charity, admission fees help us fund vital conservation work at our places. They go directly to properties, allowing us to care for these special places for many years to come,” it said.
Suzanne Brazier, from Royston in Hertfordshire, said one trust property she visited, Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire, now charged a single entry fee of £18 per person, which included access to the hall, farm and garden. “One cannot visit the shop or café or walk in the park without paying this extortionate fee,” Ms Brazier said.
Meanwhile, NJ Meeker from Warminster said it was now impossible to visit the 1,072-hectare estate of Stourhead in Wiltshire, including its landscaped gardens, without paying for entrance to the Grade I-listed Palladianstyle mansion that sits on the property.
Despite the single fee, the National
Trust informs customers on its website that “visits to the house are limited, and entry to the house is not guaranteed on the day you visit”. Mr Neeker said: “I go twice a year and don’t need to see the house. I will cease visiting while this pricing regime is in force.”
The charity added: “Around three quarters of visitors to our pay- forentry places are members who get access to as many places as they like for as little as £6 a month.
“Single admission prices give visitors an opportunity to explore these vast estates, including historic houses, gardens and parklands. For frequent visitors, an annual membership is a cost- effective way to enjoy unlimited visits while also supporting our work to care for our places.”
The National Trust saw membership fall by about half a million to roughly 5.4 million last year during successive lockdowns.
However, the latest figures from the charity show that roughly 114,000 new members have joined each month.
Members of the charity are also leaving at a slower pace than in previous years. Membership retention rates since April stand at 87.5pc, the National Trust said, compared with 84pc last year and 85pc in 2019.
‘I used to go twice a year but will cease visiting while this pricing regime is in force’