SAVE OUR SCOTLAND
Experts sound clarion call to protect the country’s historic homes and gardens
New chief of National Trust for Scotland on how Covid crisis threatens country’s heritage:
They are not yet redundancies.the Cabinet Secretary has been clear that she would like to see a reduction in positions at risk and more properties that can be reopened. I would dearly love to achieve these outcomes as well. She will be naturally concerned that any input that the government might contribute to the trust demonstrates the public benefit of that.”
He said Ms Hyslop had formed a team of civil servants, Scottish Enterprise officials and trust managers to identify the “best possible solutions”.
“Covid has created a situation where we don’t have positions for people to be employed in,” he said. “We are working hard to establish what our plans will be. We have already reopened some of our natural heritage properties and we will be opening many more.”
Some of the trust’s properties such as stately homes would open in August, but others presented more of a challenge. “The reality is the financial impact on the trust of the
first few months of closure is that it is not viable for us to reopen some of those properties this year,” said Mr Long. “We want to be able to open far more next year, and that will of course need staffing resources. But we need to consider all of these actions now to return to business in a much more stable way next year.”
Mr Long, who earlier this year was awarded an OBE for his services to culture and heritage, is urging people to visit NTS sites, book NTS holiday accommodation, take up memberships and throw their weight behind the appeal.
He explained that despite having 400 million visitors last year and the biggest membership of any organisation in Scotland with 365,000 supporters, the trust’s work came at great cost. It spends £52m every year to keep its 88 visited properties, 300,000 artefacts and more than 76,000 hectares of countryside in top form.
Mr Long added: “If you care about Scotland’s heritage, please do support us.”