Another public meeting has been called by the Friends of the Ventnor Botanic Garden.
Taking place once again at the Winter Gardens in Ventnor, we’re told that this time, Isle of Wight Council (IWC) Cabinet member, Cllr George Brown will be attending the meeting at 7.30pm next Monday (15th November).
Staff cuts are inevitable
Chair of the Friends, Philip Le May, gave the Ventnor Town Council (VTC) an update on the position at Monday night’s VTC meeting.
He reported that the IWC subsidy to the Garden was due to be reduced by 30% in April and a further 20% by 2012.
Having looked at where cuts could be made, he said that sadly, the only way the Garden could continue running would be through staff cuts.
30% of the annual budget is around £160,000 and the only option would be to offer voluntary redundancies in the first instance. He told the meeting that there were around 16-17 staff in total, some part time, with nine gardeners.
Philip also expressed great frustration at the lack of response, or “half-answers” given by the IWC to their questions about the future of the Garden. Sympathy was echoed around the room.
Plan B – Development Trust
The good news is that as well as next Monday’s meeting being an opportunity for the public to let Cllr Brown know their feelings about the review of the future of the Garden, it is also hoped to gather support from the public for what Philip called ‘Plan B’.
If required, the Friends are considering setting up a Development Trust to take over the running of the Garden, calling on professional help from Island residents for legal, administration, marketing services, etc.
Philip went on to say that he felt the IWC really didn’t have any idea of how valuable the Garden is, reporting the plant collection being worth in the region of £10-£12 million and the number of visitors each year well in excess of £300,000 pa.
The VTC agreed to offer their support where ever possible in retaining the Ventnor Botanic Garden.
Update: 14.15pm
Since publishing the above, Andrea Richter, from the Friends of the Ventnor Botanic Garden, got in touch to provide more info.
The mission statement and ethos of our business is to remain community driven with social and public focus through a ‘not for profit’ organisation. Any profit made from social enterprises will be invested into community projects and any commercial profit will be invested into the running of the Botanic Gardens and used to develop corporate and future projects.
We are hoping that we will be able to work with the local authority, to agree on a strategy so they can unburden themselves of managing the Botanical Gardens and leave them to be managed financially and strategically by the Ventnor Botanic Gardens Development Trust. We are hoping the Development Trust will be given complete autonomy to run it as a successful business without the constraints of local authority administration.
