Letters: National Trust visitors must be free to explore as they please

SIR – It was with rising blood pressure that I read your report (August 22) on the National Trust’s plans to discourage visitors from making long car journeys to country properties.

I pay £300 a year for membership for myself and my husband, and for our two sons and their families. We only have one small Arts and Crafts property near us – very nice, but not full of excitement for young children, or indeed adults. The highlight of my 50-year membership has been visiting the historic houses on holiday trips. Benefactors gave their homes so that visitors could discover the history, beauty and tranquillity of these places.

I was on the verge of becoming a volunteer, but this will not happen if the rules are changed over when and how the properties are visited. Nor will I be renewing my membership.

Margaret Whelband
Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire

SIR – I worked at a National Trust property that was six miles from the nearest town, with no public transport available. From inside the property itself, it was two miles to the visitor centre, lavatories and café.

Most stately homes are on large estates, away from towns and cities, which makes it hard to get to them on foot. If the Trust doesn’t want to lose more money, it needs to rethink.

Andrea Hall
North Anston, South Yorkshire

SIR – Charles Moore’s article on the National Trust’s plans for the future (Comment, August 22) gives great cause for alarm, but I fear that the organisation has already damaged itself through its approach to Covid-19.

Compared with privately owned castles, stately homes and parks, the trust has made a poor effort to open properties safely. Many interiors remain closed – and even just parking a car requires a booking. If the Trust looks at how, say, Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland has adapted, it will see why its members are frustrated.

Mark Blandford-Baker
Magdalen College, Oxford

SIR – We use National Trust properties as stopping-off points on longer journeys. Better than the average roadside halt or service station. Judging by my recent attempt to book a ticket for Stourhead at lunchtime on a journey back from the West Country, many other travellers do this, too.

People visit National Trust properties for all sorts of reasons. Deterring them would be a bad move.

Nick Eckford
Harpenden, Hertfordshire

SIR – As a National Trust volunteer, I am surprised by the suggestion that the “mansion experience” is “outdated”.

The vast majority of visitors we talk to want to know about the history of the house and family. Exhibitions relating to other matters are not the main draw. To change this model would challenge the loyalty of many enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteers – as well as that of visitors.

Nik Perfitt
Bristol

Standing up to the EU

SIR – Britain has made the entirely reasonable demand to be sovereign, but negotiations for a trade deal with the European Union have floundered on this point of principle.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, has refused to continue discussing a trade deal until Britain accepts continuity with EU state-aid and fisheries policies. In other words, the EU requires Britain to sacrifice its sovereignty in order to get a deal. Faced with such an egregious demand, Britain has no sensible course of action other than to announce that discussion on fishing has now ended, and that all other negotiations are suspended indefinitely.

It is axiomatic that to get a good deal, Britain must be prepared to leave without one. Moreover, the Prime Minister was elected on a promise of taking back control of our laws, our borders, our cash and our fishing. It is time for him to fulfil his promise by declaring in favour of no deal. And, given the wholly unreasonable position taken by the EU, he should take the opportunity to terminate the Withdrawal Agreement, which holds no benefits, only ills, for Britain.

Jayne Adye
Director, Get Britain Out
Aaron Brown
Founder, Fishing for Leave
Ann Widdecombe
Former MEP for South West England (Brexit Party)
Brendan O’Neill
Editor, Spiked
Brian Monteith
Former MEP for North East England (Brexit Party)
Andrew Allison
Head of Campaigns, The Freedom Association
David Banks
EU Defence Watch
David Bull
Former MEP for North West England (Brexit Party)
Jonathan Bullock
Former MEP for the East Midlands (Brexit Party)
David Campbell-Bannerman
Former MEP for the East of England (Con)
Martin Daubney
Former MEP for the West Midlands (Brexit Party)
Belinda De Lucy
Former MEP South East England (Brexit Party)
David Evans
Facts4Eu.org
Nathan Gill
Former MEP for Wales (Brexit Party)
Ben Habib
Former MEP for London (Brexit Party)
Daniel Hodson
Chairman, The City for Britain
Lesley Katon
Paul Knaggs
Founder, Labour Heartlands
Rupert Lowe
Former MEP for the West Midlands (Brexit Party)
Catherine McBride
Alison MacDonald
Co-founder, Scots for Leave
June Mummery
Former MEP for the East of England (Brexit Party)
Brendan O’Neill
Editor of Spiked
Robert Oulds
Director, Bruges Group
Alexandra Phillips
Former MEP for South East England (Brexit Party)
Jake Pugh
Former MEP for Yorkshire and Humber (Brexit Party)
Robert Rowland
Former MEP for South East England (Brexit Party)
Jonathan Saxty
Assistant Editor, Brexit-Watch.org
Edward Spalton
Chairman, Campaign for Independent Britain
Jim Sillars
Former MP for South Ayrshire (Lab)
Ewen Stewart
Director, Global Britain
John Tennant
Former MEP for the North East of England (Brexit Party)
Gawain Towler
Museum of Brexit
James Wells
Former MEP for Wales (Brexit Party)

Swift recovery

SIR – Recently I came across a swift (Review, August 22) in some distress. I thought it might have a broken wing. It waddled towards me as if asking for help, so I picked it up (it fitted into the palm of a single hand) and took it in a shoebox to Brent Lodge, our local wildlife rescue centre.

There I was informed that it did not have a broken wing but had fledged too soon and was exhausted. They said they had nearly two dozen swifts in a similar state and were feeding them every two hours in order to build up their strength, so that they could be released to find other swifts and begin the flight to the southern hemisphere.

I was glad to have played a part in saving a tiny but important life. They are beautiful birds.

Jeremy M J Havard
Chichester, West Sussex

SIR – It is ironic that, just as Lord Hall is promoting the BBC as an arm “to bring the country together” (report, August 24), the corporation is considering banning Land of Hope and Glory from the Proms.

David J Dodd
Gramont, Tarn-et-Garonne, France

SIR – If anyone needed proof that the BBC has lost its way, its plan to axe the singing of Land of Hope and Glory and Rule, Britannia is ample. If it does, it should lose the right to run the Proms in future years.

The licence fee should be abolished and the BBC made subscription only

Dr Tony McAllister
Hertford

SIR – I have been attending the Proms for more than 50 years. The absence of a live audience this season should not be used as a pretext to remove Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory from the programme. A musical festival should not be infected by contemporary and partisan political preoccupations.

It it yet more proof that the BBC is out of touch with most licence payers.

Russell Tillson
Greatstone, Kent

SIR – Those complaining about Rule, Britannia might look more closely at La Marseillaise, which includes the line: “Let impure blood water our furrows”.

I doubt the French will eviscerate their national anthem in the interests of political correctness.

Clive Kent
Heathfield, East Sussex

Rail in the North

SIR – Disappointingly, Grant Shapps’s announcement accelerating the delivery of rail projects (Comment, August 22) contained only one tiny project north of the Watford Gap. Several that are vital, if the Prime Minister is to deliver on his promise to level up the economy, remain stuck in the bureaucratic mud.

Why is the Government only investing taxpayer’s’ money in already affluent southern constituencies?

Mr Shapps will start to feel the heat from his own Red Wall backbenchers.

Peter Bryson
Chairman, Skipton and East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership

Stalled driving tests

SIR – As soon as the coronavirus lockdown was announced, all practical driving tests were cancelled. Over this period about 500,000 tests should have taken place.

When the booking website opened on August 21, it received nearly seven million hits and crashed. It is now due to reopen tomorrow.

Did it not occur to the Driving and Vehicles Standards Agency that there would be a deluge of applications? The lack of driving tests is holding people – particularly the young – back. The DVSA must be held to account.

Rod Came
Brede, East Sussex

Forbidden fruit

SIR – With regard to eating and drinking outside (Letters, August 24), I remember a lecture given at Cleveland Grammar School for Girls, by our headmistress, Miss Clish, during the Sixties.

She began by saying that she had witnessed a dreadful sight, involving a girl from the school.

This girl had been spotted walking along Redcar seafront eating an apple while still in her school uniform.

Patricia Abbott
Wattisfield, Suffolk

For calmer passengers, play classical music

SiR – Laura Freeman (Comment, August 20) writes that millennials have been seeking solace in classical music during lockdown. This reminded me of living in Tyneside in the early Nineties.

Faced with persistent late-night rowdiness on the main underground platforms, the Metro authorities took the idiosyncratic decision to broadcast classical music over the station speakers.

The adagio from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto proved so disorienting to the young revellers that noise levels were reduced by about 80 per cent.

Neil Voyce
Reading, Berkshire

Why are patients still being left in limbo?

SIR – Eve McLeish (Letters, August 21) asks why GP surgeries are still not offering face-to-face appointments.

The sad fact is that since March, unless you are a Covid-19 patient, NHS medical and dental primary healthcare has virtually ceased to exist.

I have waited three weeks for a GP phone appointment, and have been told that this is how surgeries will be run from now on. My oncologist has been unable to consult for four months because the private hospital he works from was commandeered by the local NHS hospital for a Covid-19 epidemic that never materialised.

I feel that the public have been let down.

Dr Martin Henry
Good Easter, Essex

SIR – My 90-year-old neighbour, who can hardly walk and has no transport, was told to go to the surgery, as no doctor would visit. What is going on?

Carol Sutcliffe
Castle Cary, Somerset

SIR – There have always been good and bad GP surgeries, so it is unfair to condemn them all.

I recently phoned mine at 8.30 am. A doctor rang me back an hour later, and, after discussing my symptoms, said I needed to see someone. Half-an-hour later I was told I had a face-to-face appointment that afternoon. Last Friday had blood tests. This practice has always provided excellent service.

Margaret Wade
London SW6

SIR – Eve McLeish’s sister has the misfortune to live in the wrong part of Kent.

In her final months, my wife received half-a-dozen visits from the NHS Home Treatment Service (west Kent), as she is registered with a surgery over the border.

A doctor in full personal protective equipment examined her, performed blood tests, prescribed antibiotics and made follow-up phone calls. She also had a couple of visits from her GP.

All the NHS staff (including the ambulance crews, rapid- response teams and district nurses) were faultlesss, and this service should be available to everyone.

Anthony Lott
Etchingham, East Sussex

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