The National Fruit Collections and Brogdale

A decision is anticipated by the end of the year from Defra on the National Fruit Collections and Brogdale: that is whether the Collections will remain at Brogdale or be moved elsewhere and who will be their managers in the future. We understand that there are five bidders for this Defra tender – three who will keep the Collections at Brogdale and two who want to relocate the Collections. The latter includes the partnership between the present managers – the Brogdale Horticultural Trust and Imperial College at Wye – and East Malling Research and relocation to East Malling, some 20 miles away.

Since the possibility that the Collections might be relocated emerged at the beginning of the year, tremendous opposition has been voiced. The Trust’s own Friends passed a resolution that meant in effect they only supported the Trust whilst it maintained the Collections at Brogdale. Carrying the spirit of that resolution forward a new separate organisation, the Friends of the National Fruit Collections at Brogdale, formed to campaign to keep the Collections at Brogdale; they have sent over 2,000 signatures to Defra in support of retaining the Collections at Brogdale. Many people (either as individuals or through their MPs) have written to Defra in opposition to moving the Collections. The local Swale Borough Council has lobbied Defra to keep the Collections at Brogdale. But Kent County Council have recommended moving the Collections to East Malling; why they made this decision has never been revealed.

As readers to this web-site will be well aware the National Fruit Collections have been growing at Brogdale for the past fifty years. In that time a great deal of work has resulted in them becoming the finest collections of temperate fruits in the world, backed by fifty years of records, which are unparalleled in any other fruit collection. To move the Collections elsewhere would break this continuity and mean starting all over again.

The Collections are not only an invaluable global genetic resource but also part of the UK’s and many other nations’ cultural and economic heritage. Defra have recognised the educational and historic role that the Collections play in the present tender for their management. At Brogdale the Collections have been open to the public for the past 17 years, during which time they have achieved considerable prominence, even the envy of other countries. Brogdale and the Collections are associated in everyone’s minds and to break that connection would be to throw away years of national and international good will that would not easily be regained at another location.

The Brogdale site was chosen by MAFF, now Defra, for its suitability for reliably growing a wide range of fruits. Nothing has changed in this regard. Its soils and climate remain ideal and its location near the sea, together with a slight elevation, provides some protection from the harmful effects of spring frosts. Another site may not be so ideally suited. The Brogdale site is equipped for growing and using Collections with all the infrastructure present. To move the Collections would involve considerable expense and time, not only for the repropagation and verification of the new Collections, but also for the recreation of the infrastructure and the facilities for public access.

There are no good reasons for relocating the Collections. None of those advanced have any substance whatsoever. It has been alleged that the Brogdale site is not secure and does not have a long-term future, since the Defra lease on the land comes to an end in 2016. But Defra have an automatic right to renewal for a further 25 years and the landlord has offered to extend this to 2050. Furthermore, the landlord is currently investing £1million in refurbishing the site to make it more attractive to visitors and has established a social enterprise company to organise visitor events; six have been staged this year. This all adds to the long-term security of Brogdale as a permanent home for the Collections rather than the reverse.

The Brogdale Horticultural Trust’s poor relationship with the landlord has also been put forward as a reason for relocation; the Trust moved its administration elsewhere in March 2007 and as we have seen is now a partner in a bid to relocate the Collections. But the Trust’s difficulties with its landlord are no reason for moving the Collections. The Trust’s future and that of the Collections are quite separate issues.

It has been suggested that the Collections are in need of repropagation (a part of their routine husbandry) and that this therefore presents an opportune time to move the Collections. But this is also not a valid reason. The Apple Collection is coming up for repropagation, but the Pear Collection has already been repropagated and is awaiting planting. The Cherry, Plum, Nut and Soft Fruit Collections have all been recently repropagated and will not need to be done again for some twenty or more years. In these cases moving the Collections would involve duplication of work that Defra has already funded.

Organisations lobbying for relocation are perhaps looking to their own survival rather than the best interests of the Collections. At Brogdale, the Collections have a secure future as a living collection. To move the Collections would be to put them at risk and threaten them with a reduction in the number of varieties in the name of so-called rationalisation. The Collections might be split with one collection of fruits going to one site and another collection to an alternative location. The Collections might be grown in a smaller area and as a result in a more compact way, as cordons, for example, rather than bush trees, thus greatly diminishing the pleasure of seeing the trees and offering considerably less fruit. The Collections might not be open to the public or only for limited periods at another site. It may also present the opportunity to put part of the Collections in a deep freeze, conserved as cryopreserved samples, rather than growing them as living trees.

We urge Defra to choose the common sense solution, which is also the most economical and least disruptive – to keep this unique British asset at its established home at Brogdale.

Joan Morgan