Letter: The National Trust Should Be Embarrassed About How Long the Weir Repair Is Taking

Published on: 12 Jan, 2025
Updated on: 12 Jan, 2025

Tumbling Bay Weir and closed towpath Photo Guildford Society

From S Callanan

In response to: National Trust Announce Funding Secured, At Last, for Weir Bridge Repair

The response given to The Dragon following the question raised by the chair of the Guildford Society is typical National Trust.

Funding has been “secured” to reinstate the bridge at Tumbling Bay Weir. I take it the funding comes from the Trust, so it was always effectively “secured”.

Let’s not forget that despite NT always asking for money it’s actually a wealthy organisation. Members like me are not interested in the internal bureaucracy of bidding to “secure” funds. And I doubt the Trust is prepared to explain.

There’s not a word of apology for wasting years arguing about whether or not NT should pay. Whose idea was that? How has it benefitted the membership? How much did the argument cost the Trust in lawyers and consultants?

I don’t know the nature of the permissions the Trust has now to obtain, the identity of the “agencies” through whom the NT has to work to mitigate flood risk intrinsic to the project (why not name them?), or the detail of the tendering process for the construction phase. But I can’t help thinking that some of this could have been done in 2024 so that construction could start earlier than is now planned.

Overall, I think the National Trust should be extremely embarrassed rather than astonishingly relaxed about the time this project will have taken from the date of the collapse to its eventual completion.