Llyn Dinas
News abounds in todays national papers that the National Trust is once again, launching a major appeal for funds to enable it to buy a 600+ acre farmstead in a particularly beautiful part of the Snowdonia National Park. According to reports,the Owen family who own the holding- which includes the lake of Llyn Dinas- are looking for in excess of one million pounds for the property.
The news provokes strong feelings of deja vu for conservationists and casual observers of the National Trust at work. In 1997 the Trust launched a £4m appeal to buy a 4.000 acre estate next to this property which included part of the Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) summit. Not the entire mountain as was commonly mis-reported. The Trust eventually reached its target thanks to a well publicised donation from Welsh/Hollywood actor Anthony Hopkins.
At the time eyebrows were raised that a charity should wish to spend what was considered then an excessive amount for an estate which largely consisted of poor rough pasture land and several properties. At the same time as the National Trust were paying four million pounds for their Snowdonia Estate,in Scotland, The John Muir Trust charity were ironically buying roughly the same amount of land including the summit area of Ben Nevis for just one tenth of that amount. £450k to be exact.
Given the limited commercial value of the Snowdonia estate either as a farm or for a business venture which because of strict national park planning regulations would find itself hamstrung by restrictions;the Williams Family who owned the estate, must have pinched themselves at their good fortune as they wended their way over the hills to the flat lands of Ynys Mon!
Now it's happening all over again. This time, another Welsh/Hollywood star, Matthew Rhys has launched the NT's one million pound campaign to buy the Owen family farmstead which includes a modest traditional Welsh vernacular farmhouse. The owner Ken Owen who is retiring from farming must be hoping that the National Trust once again pays top dollar to take the farmstead into its possession.
For those who wander hereabouts,there is a feeling that perhaps the NT's ownership of the holding might not necessarily be a good thing. After all, walkers are free to roam the land under the Crow act and with public footpaths running across the land anyway and with a campsite on the holding, access is pretty much guaranteed anyway. Given the National Trust's predilection to organise their properties along highly controlled commercial lines...expensive car parking..strict boundaries of access...expensive camping and accomodation...lists of do's and don'ts etc..Perhaps walkers and climbers would be best served by the Trust failing in its campaign this time? At the very least, perhaps it could take a leaf out of The John Muir Trust's book and negotiate realistic prices for upland estates and holdings.
Post Title
→Another Snowdonia sale.Will the National Trust be ripped off again?
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→https://national-grid-news.blogspot.com/2011/03/another-snowdonia-salewill-national.html
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