Horticulture ‘undervalued and overlooked’
Government should sit up and take notice of industry, says Alan Titchmarsh
The Government offers ‘little direct support or fiscal incentives’ to horticulture in the UK, despite it delivering ‘exceptional public value’, a report has concluded.
Alan Titchmarsh has now urged government to ‘sit up and take notice’ of the industry that in 2017 was worth £24.2 billion, supported 568,700 jobs and generated £5.4 billion of revenue for treasury coffers, with income from tourists visiting UK gardens worth an estimated £2.9 billion, as well as being valuable in both cultural and health terms.
The well-known gardener, who recently met with MPs and industry representatives at Westminster, said the report was a ‘tremendous wake-up call’.
Compiled by global forecaster Oxford Economics, the paper estimated Britain’s parks, gardens and green spaces provided a £131 billion boost to UK house prices fuelled by the public’s appeal for nature, and highlighted the alarming fact that an increasing number of homes are being built without private gardens, projected to be absent at a further million properties by 2020 compared to 1995.
“To squander what it offers us and to undervalue and fail to support those who work in horticulture, whether in gardens or in food production, is both short-sighted and dangerous. This report is not a series of options, it is a series of essentials,” said Alan. l The report, ‘The Economic Impact of Ornamental Horticulture and Landscaping in the UK’, was commissioned by the Ornamental Horticulture Roundtable Group, composed of key players in the industry, such as the RHS and the Horticultural Trades Association and the Institute of Horticulture.