Gardener's question time

Spectator, The, Aug 9, 2003 by Keen, Mary

Is the taxpayer about to stump up another L16 million for the Duchess of Northumberland's pet project, Alnwick Garden? Mary Keen investigates

To him that hath shall be given, and to the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland hath been given quite a lot. We are talking public funding here. The L11.5m Lottery sum awarded to secure the Duke's Raphael for the nation is a record for a work of art. This could be chicken-feed, however, compared with the funding the Duchess hopes to bag for her pet project, the Alnwick Garden, which by the time it is completed will have cost an estimated L42m.

When I interviewed Jane Northumberland in March for the Daily Telegraph, she said something that I agreed not to mention in that article. Ten minutes into our talk in her Portakabin office, she was outlining such ambitious plans for phases two and three of the garden - a total spend of L32m, following the almost L10m that went on phase one - that I cut her short to ask, 'How will you get the money?' She replied that half of it was already promised from government funding for the North-East and European grants. I got the feeling that her financial adviser (John Lovett, a chartered accountant and family friend) would have preferred her not to have told me. Now the time has come to tell the story.

The garden was hived off from the ducal empire and turned into a private charitable trust in April. The Duke has given away the 42 acres of land on which the garden and its attendant carparks sit for 99 years. The Duchess was made a trustee. The chairman of the board is Dr John Bridge, who chairs One NorthEast, the regional development agency designed to generate growth and create wealth. Jane Northumberland breathes, sleeps, cats and dreams the project.

The girl who never really expected to be a duchess was given a walled garden and a million pounds to spend on it by her hus-band, to cheer her up for having to move into gloomy old Hogwarts (Alnwick Castle is the setting for the Harry Potter films). The garden cheered her up like anything. She went to Paris with her friend Lady Cawdor, and chose the Belgian designers Wirtz International Landscapes and ordered some amazing techie fountains. She also got to make a film with Charlie Dimmock. They both wore hard hats, and the young Duchess looked very pretty in hers. But all this began to cost money. The budget for the first phase went haywire. The indulgent Duke is a man with assets of L800m. He put in another L4.5m and gave her a loan of a further L3.3m - interest-free - and then presumably said that she had had quite enough money for garden-keeping and that she must make do with what she had.

His wife is a girl with get-up-and-go. She talked to the Great and the Good and to local councillors. She learned PC-speak about education and disabled projects, so that what had started as a garden became a public regeneration project. She travelled the length and breadth of England to raise funds by speaking in auction houses and private houses. She gave interviews to media folk. And the money poured in. 'I wish,' said James McDonald, the Alnwick Garden's PR man, 'that I could tell you some of the people who have given money.' He seemed wistful. 'Recently quite a famous person,' he added. 'The Prince of Wales?' I asked, and got the answer: 'I couldn't possibly say that.' The Prince has been a supporter and patron from the start and opened the first (L9.2m) phase.

In addition to home loans and private donations, the garden secured L450,000 of European funding for phase one. For phase two, a spokesman for One NorthEast told me that 'to date L800,000 has been awarded for an economic impact study and the development of a business plan as well as signage within the garden and in the town. There is a further application for L2.2m to the Northumberland Strategic Partnership currently going through the standard appraisal process.' At the time of writing, that makes the total L3,450,000 of public funding. To that must be added a grant of L250,000 for Treetopia, the Alnwick tree-house which will cost L3.7m, from the Northern Rock Foundation, 'whose primary objective is to help those most disadvantaged in society'.

In a study commissioned by English Heritage, it was found that people from social groups D and E rarely visit historic parks or grand gardens. The Gateway project, in Wales, is desperate for L500,000 of Lottery money to fund the work they do, promoting free visits for what they call under-represented groups to historic parks and gardens. They pay for a bus and lay on a tour and often provide refreshments. Places like Alnwick are expensive and intimidating for those most disadvantaged in society.

The average grant for a run-down urban park in the North-East is L1.4m. HartlEpool, Sunderland, Newcastle, Gatcshead and Middlesbrough have all been awarded public funding of about f 1.5m. There are no statutory obligations on local councils to keep parks in good order, and there is a dismal backlog of work. The government is committed to the regeneration of public spaces in depressed areas, but poorer places can rarely attract the sort of matching funding that the Duchess has secured. Money attracts money. According to Dr Stewart Harding, who is responsible for the original Heritage Lottery Fund Urban Parks Programme and is now a private-sector consultant, 'There is so much money needed for parks in the North-East and North-West.'