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Grant gives Wales' botanic garden new lease of life

David Ward
Tuesday October 7, 2003
The Guardian

A £43m Welsh lottery project that looked as if it might go the same way as
the Millennium Dome was thrown a cash lifeline last night.
The trustees of Middleton, the national botanic garden of Wales which boasts
Britain's largest single-span greenhouse, announced that they had accepted a
£353,000 emer agency package which would enable the garden to stay open "in
the short term".

But Middleton's future is uncertain as it searches for new funding, and
redundancies among the 100 staff seem inevitable. The garden, opened in
2000, aimed to attract 250,000 visitors a year to its 226-hectare (568-acre)
site at Middleton Hall in Carmarthenshire.

But the project, with a serious research brief, failed to achieve the
success of the Eden Project in Cornwall. The number of visitors paying the
£6.95 admission charge dropped to 150,000, prompting a cash crisis, which
threatened jobs. Last week the trustees appealed to the Welsh assembly when
it seemed as if the garden, which received £21.6m from the Millennium
Commission, could go into administration.

The assembly came up with a financial offer, which would have kept Middleton
open for just one month. The trustees said the strings attached to the deal
were unacceptable.

But just before the weekend, they were offered a new deal put together by
Carmarthen county council, the assembly and the Millennium Commission.

The council and the assembly offered £150,000 each and the commission has
contributed £53,000.

"During this period of financial respite, the Welsh assembly government will
lead the search to find a funding partner for Middleton," said a statement
from the trustees.

"The garden will remain open, but to maximise available funds, it will be
operated with a skeleton staff. All staff contracts will be honoured, with
appropriate redundancy pack ages being put in place."

At the weekend, the trustees offered free entry to Middleton and all records
were broken when 4,500 visitors arrived.

Evelyn Thurlby, Middleton's chief operating officer said: "Visitors'
comments underlined just how important having a national botanic garden is
for Wales."

Middleton is the first national botanic garden created in Britain for 200
years.


--
David Hill
Abacus nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk