The Royal Horticultural Society has demanded £6m in compensation from the government after major roadworks impacted the number of visitors to its flagship site.
The charity launched a petition to secure the reimbursement after it said 350,000 fewer people had visited the RHS Garden Wisley annually due to roadworks on the M25/A3 interchange.
Losses are expected to rise from the current £6m to £11m by the time the £317m National Highway roadworks finally finish.
The charity says the drop in visitors to its gardens in Surrey has forced it to delay the development of new arboretums and the planting of 4,000 trees to investigate climate resilience for the next century.
RHS Vice President Alan Titchmarsh CBE said it could have created 15 NHS wellbeing gardens and funded 110 horticultural apprenticeships or 38 science PhD students with the lost funds, as he urged more people to get behind the petition.
“These losses are catastrophic not only for the RHS, but for the whole of the UK in terms of the incredible work the RHS does to help people and planet and educating and supporting millions of gardeners to garden more sustainably for a better future,” the gardener and broadcaster said.
“Unlike others that failed before it, this Government must recognise the importance of horticulture, of gardeners and of the immense positive benefits gardens, gardening and growing plants can have on our health, the environment, wildlife and biodiversity to safeguard the future for generations to come.”
Over 60,000 people have already signed the charity’s petition.
In a survey carried out by the RHS, nearly 80 per cent of members who visited RHS Wisley less frequently in the last year attributed this to the M25/A3 roadworks near the garden.
Additionally, 63 per cent of non-visiting members in this period said they had not visited for the same reason.
Since the works began in September 2022, dozens of road closures and significant travel disruption have contributed to the 25 per cent reduction in visitors to the site.
According to National Highways the project “will reduce congestion, create a smoother flow of traffic and provide safer journeys for thousands every day” by building new slip roads and bridges.
It is scheduled to be completed in summer this year, but the RHS believe it won’t be completed until 2026.
“The Highways compensation laws are complicated and unlikely to enable the RHS to recoup these devastating losses. If there was ever a special case for compensation surely RHS Wisley stands out as a national treasure that needs to be upheld and prized and our vital charitable work to be protected,” RHS Director General, Clare Matterson CBE said.
“At the time of granting consent to the scheme, the Secretary of State reviewing the Planning Inspectors decision assessed that the RHS had a case, but that we were overstating the heritage and economic harm, and that it would be short lived and insubstantial. Today we can now evidence that the harm is exactly as we predicted.”
