At a meeting of the Kent County Council Cabinet on Monday, 17 December, the future of the National Fruit Collections was discussed.
As a result Councillor and cabinet member, Roger Gough, has written to Lord Rooker and Defra in a letter which ’represents Kent County Council’s official position and supersedes any previous communication’, referring, one presumes, to his letter of 10 May, which gave KCC’s specific support to the Imperial College, Brogdale Trust and East Malling bid involving relocation of the Collections to East Malling. That specific support has been withdrawn and replaced by general support for any bid that retains the Collections in Kent, as he has subsequently ‘become aware a number of bids have been made supporting retention of the collection on the Brogdale site, and believe that some or all of these have a strong scientific basis’.
We welcome this decision, although we had hoped that KCC would follow the path taken by its Scrutiny Committee, which gave unqualified support to the retention of the Collections at Brogdale (see post below).
To read both of these letters click here KCC to Defra 10 May 07 and here KCC to Rooker 17 Dec 07
Friends of the National Fruit Collections at Brogdale
