Written evidence submitted by The Greenwich
Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College (arts 67)
THE GREENWICH
FOUNDATION'S
ROLE AND
STRUCTURE
1. The Greenwich Foundation for the Old
Royal Naval College represents an interesting model for the development
of different funding streams to address what had been an intractable
heritage problem until the late 1990's. Our short history suggests
answers to some of the questions being asked of heritage bodies
in receipt of public funding.
2. The Foundation was set up in 1997 as
a charity independent of government, to take on the refurbishment
and secure the future of the Old Royal Naval College (ORNC), one
of the finest groups of English Baroque buildings and the core
of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. The ORNC includes
the site of Henry VIII's favourite Palace, superseded by Wren's
Royal Hospital for Seamen c 1700, which survives remarkably intact
and includes glorious interiors such as the Chapel and Painted
Hall. It had been suggested in 1996 when the Navy decided to vacate
the site that it should be sold to a private developer, and the
Foundation was set up as an alternative solution to secure its
future and realise the public benefit in a place so significant
in our national history. The ORNC remains in public ownership,
but is leased to the Foundation for 150 years.
3. The Foundation has over the last 10 years
restored the buildings to their former glory, and as landlord
with overall responsibility for the fabric overseen their sympathetic
conversion to a new campus for the University of Greenwich and
Trinity College of Music. As well as rent from these and other
smaller tenants, the Foundation has diversified its income streams
to include catering, weddings and corporate event hire, film location
hire, public events and even (earlier this year) a microbrewery,
set up in 2010 by a local commercial brewery on the site of the
historic Hospital Brewery.
GOVERNMENT FUNDING
4. The net result of this activity is that
dependence on government grant has fallen from 64% of our total
income in 2000 to 34% in 2010 (out of total income of £4.3
million). Over this period our grant had been frozen at £1.5
million, although this has been reduced to £1.455 million
in the current year and we have been asked by the Department to
illustrate the impact of further reductions of up to 25%. Continued
government support for the Foundation remains vital; it is a secure
"baseline" that has allowed us to invest in income-generating
projects such as the microbrewery and thus to reduce overall dependency.
In effect the public subsidy is helping to underwrite the cost
of public access to the site, and the "heritage premium"
required to keep the buildings in good repair. This funding stream
is vital to allow us to fulfil the agreement with our tenants,
the University and Trinity, embedded in long term leases to which
the government was party in 1998. With only 32 staff, of whom
all but five are in "front line" service delivery posts,
the Foundation cannot absorb such cuts without curtailing its
investment in income-generating facilities and/or its regular
maintenance programmes. Both of these would be false economies.
LOTTERY AND
PRIVATE CHARITABLE
SUPPORT
5. Capital grants from the Heritage Lottery
Fund to the Foundation amounting to £12.5 million over the
last decade have also been vital to securing a sustainable future
for the buildings. We have added to these with a successful private/trust
donor campaign which raised over £500k towards the £6
million cost of the in respect of the recently-completed Discover
Greenwich visitor centre for the whole World Heritage Site. It
includes the state-of-the-art Clore Learning Suite, now delivering
tailored education programmes to over 6,000 schoolchildren per
annum. We have built a new Tourist Information Centre run by the
London Borough of Greenwich as part of the project, which also
includes the previously-mentioned microbrewery, café and
restaurant. Well over half the investment in Discover Greenwich
was externally funded.
PUBLIC BENEFIT
6. The public benefits which arise from
the success of this model are significant. Not only does the Foundation
look after these magnificent buildings and grounds to the highest
standard, and open the whole site and the finest interiors free
of charge all year round, but we have provided a visitor centre
for the whole of the Maritime Greenwich WHS in Discover Greenwich.
ORNC is part of the equestrian Olympic site in 2012, and we are
now well placed to capitalise on the "Olympic legacy".
We have reached out to new audiences with our education and public
events programmes, which have included concerts, ice rinks and
theatre—all of which have generated income for the estate.
Our visitor numbers have risen from just over 400k in 2002 to
an estimated 1.3 million in the current year.
TOURISM AND
THE ECONOMY
7. We also make a significant regional contribution
to tourism and the local economy. With the creation of the microbrewery
we added some 37 new jobs to Greenwich town centre, and our ongoing
building repair programmes have had an equally important impact
in the local construction and craft skills sectors.
SUMMARY
8. Against this background the points to
which the Foundation would wish to draw the Committee's attention
are as follows:
(i) Given the flexibility to operate outside
the public sector, regional/local historic buildings charities
such as the Foundation present an excellent and efficient model
for running large properties in public ownership, maximising income
generation opportunities;
(ii) Nonetheless continued government support
is still vital in our case, to underwrite the gap between the
commercial value of the buildings and the cost of maintaining
them and keeping them open to the public;
(iii) Capital grant from the HLF was also vital
to securing the long term future of the buildings; and
(iv) It is possible to raise significant sums
from private donors and charitable trusts against projects where
there is a strong case for support—such as the educational
benefits of Discover Greenwich. It is however not possible to
raise private money towards regular maintenance of a public asset.
September 2010
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