Burns Heritage Protected in Successful
Conclusion to the Petition
The following report is from the
Glasgow Herald of 18 February 2005.
Burns Cottage
saved as council lets National Trust move
MARTYN McLAUGHLIN
and BRIAN DONNELLY - February 18 2005
THE dilapidated birthplace of Robert
Burns was saved for the nation yesterday and could now become the
centrepiece of a pilgrimage trail celebrating the bard's life and
literature.
Burns enthusiasts and politicians
last night welcomed a deal where the National Trust for Scotland
(NTS) will take over the Alloway heritage park in which Burns Cottage
is sited.
South Ayrshire Council removed a
major stumbling block to the trust's offer to run the park by dropping
its plans to lease the Tam O'Shanter Experience, a multimedia tourist
centre which attracts most of the park's income, to the private
sector.
The NTS will now preside over an
initial 12-month management structure of the Burns National Heritage
Park from the spring. It will survey Burns Cottage and other parts
of the park, construct a business plan, and apply to the Scottish
Executive and the Heritage Lottery Fund for funding to enable it
to assume control on a permanent basis.
It had stressed that the
deal must include the Tam O'Shanter Experience, and there were
fears that the local authority's move last year to put the attraction
up for lease could jeopardise the takeover.
However, the council
will today announce that it is entering into immediate negotiations
with the NTS in an attempt to speed up the management transition.
It is expected the NTS will consult Ayrshire-based businesses
to help draw together a £10m masterplan that will turn Burns Cottage into the focal point of
a pilgrimage trail celebrating the life and literature of the bard in advance
of executive plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth in four years'
time.
Campaigners have voiced concerns over the condition of Burns's birthplace.
There is rising damp in the cottage, and in recent months, important
manuscripts and documents have had to be transferred to a museum in Edinburgh
for safekeeping.
The executive has yet to announce
details of how it intends to subsidise the NTS masterplan, but
a spokesman for Patricia Ferguson, the minister for tourism, culture
and sport, welcomed the U-turn by the local authority.
He said: "This
has always been Patricia Ferguson's preferred option. We are
delighted at the way the council has been working with the NTS
to ensure Burns's birthplace is safeguarded for years to come."
Adam
Ingram, SNP MSP for the South of Scotland, said: "The plan to save
Burns Cottage has really moved in the right direction now that
the council has changed its mind over the Tam O'Shanter Experience.
Given the pressure that was put on them, they had to go along with
the NTS and I'm very pleased that's the case.
"The NTS must now get its skates on come the spring and present its business
plan for the park and apply for funding. If all goes according
to plan, there should be a strong, local management structure in place to ensure
Burns's heritage remains an integral part of Ayrshire."
Robert Crawford, poet
and professor of modern Scottish literature and head of the school of English
at St Andrews University, said: "It is excellent and sane
that it is to be saved. It would've been a disaster had it not
been. It is part of our national memory."
Paul Scott, historian and cultural
commentator, said: "It has been a serious
worry that it has been left to get into such a bad condition
with documents not being properly preserved, the roof leaking, and the the
whole thing becoming deplorable, so I am delighted it is to be saved."
Several
firms, including a major construction company and a hotel chain, had tendered
six-figure offers to the council for the Tam O'Shanter Experience and the
successful bidder was expected to be announced shortly. But at a private
meeting yesterday, councillors decided instead to consult with
the NTS to ensure a suitable management structure is put in place
as soon as possible. It is understood that some of the unsuccessful
bidders could even play a role in drawing together the NTS masterplan.
The blueprint will focus on a "coherent, single-ticket pilgrimage" tour
dedicated to Burns, using the thatched cottage as a starting point
for the heritage trail.
It would then link to other sites, such as the poet's house
in Dumfries, the Bachelors' Club in Tarbolton, and Souter Johnnie's
Cottage in the village of Kirkoswald. It is anticipated the
scheme will also rid the cottage of rising damp and see a collection
of Burns's texts and letters restored and expanded.
The council,
which owns the Tam O'Shanter Experience, is withdrawing from
it at the end of next month, and its decision last year to put
the Alloway facility up for lease sparked fears for the future
of the rest of the park, which includes the thatched cottage
where Burns was born in 1759.
As part of its proposed £10m
blueprints, the NTS stressed it would only consider taking over
the park if it included the centre.
Protect Burns's Heritage
Sign this Petition to the Scottish Parliament
PETITION NOW CLOSED
"The current state of Burns cottage and museum
at Alloway is a national disgrace. The failure to realise the potential
of our Burns heritage in both cultural and economic terms is a
massive source of frustration to the local community and indeed
to the country at large.
Given that the Scottish Executive announced
over three years ago that development of the Burns icon would
be central to its efforts to promote heritage tourism we are entitled
to demand that the gap between reality and rhetoric should be
closed as a matter of urgency.
The last thing I want to see is fragmentation
of the Burns National Heritage Park. The time is ripe for control
and management of the Park to be passed to a body like the National
Trust for Scotland and for investment plans to be underwritten
by the Executive itself". Adam Ingram MSP
Petition to the Scottish Parliament
We the undersigned are greatly concerned at the impending dissolution
of the Joint Board of the Robert Burns National Heritage Park in
Alloway and at the recent collapse of the investment plans for
Burns Cottage and Museum. The latter are cultural assets of national
importance but are clearly suffering from lack of investment with
the museum by common consent no longer fit for purpose.
The petitioners therefore request the Scottish Parliament to:
(a) review the
policy and commitment of the Scottish Executive to place Robert
Burns and his legacy at the heart of its culture and tourism
policies
(b) urge the Scottish
Executive to assume responsibility for bringing together all
interested parties to ensure the flagship assets of our Burns
heritage are properly restored and developed in good time for
the major events planned for the 2009 Homecoming Year, marking
the 250 th anniversary of the birth of the national bard.
To sign the petition online click the link below.
