An appeal from the Director of the Arboretum, John Grimshaw

Inevitably the arboretum’s finances have suffered terribly as a consequence of the pandemic. We reopened in June with encouraging numbers of visitors, and the café is now back in part-time operation, but we missed three months of income – about £80,000 – during the peak spring period, a very significant sum. To ameliorate this loss we have made significant savings by maximising the use of the furlough scheme, extremely tight economy and, sadly, losing some staff positions. Even so it looks as if we will be unexpectedly short by about £50,000 this year, a direct consequence of Covid-19.

Read more here