Funding relief for the National Botanic Garden of Wales |
The National Botanic Garden of Wales is to benefit from raft of financial measures, including a grant to pay off a £1.9 million overdraft, to enable it to further develop its horticultural and educational resources. The Welsh Assembly has also announced that it will increase its level of support from £150,000 to £550,00 a year (until 2010-2011) and that the Carmarthenshire County Council will convert a £135,000 loan it made to the garden, into a non-returnable grant. Within his announcement, Ieuan Wyn Jones, Deputy first Minister and Minister for the Economy and Transport, praised the garden management team for its progress in making the garden more commercially viable. Visitor numbers had increased 20 percent since 2003 and income from corporate hospitality was up by 40 percent. The garden is also on target to meet its visitor targets for 2007-2008 but to achieve future success it needs new exhibits and displays and to reach out to a wider audience. As a result the garden is in talks with the University of Wales Bangor to develop an educational centre at the University’s Treborth Botanic Garden and, with the Countryside Council of Wales, to designate 400 acres of land within the gardens estate to National Nature Reserve. Mr Wyn Jones acknowledged that the garden was not yet in a position to be self-sustaining. ‘Indeed, none of our national institutions are,’ he added. ‘Current resources are insufficient to properly manage the estate and garden areas and a greater level of financial support is required to meet these costs. At the Garden’s current stage of development this cannot be generated from visitor income alone.’ However he said the new financial package should provide a sound financial base on which the garden could consolidate and grow. |
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