According to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) due to the National Highways A3/M25 roadwork, 350,000 fewer people visit RHS Garden Wisley annually, resulting in £6 million losses to date – including nearly £1million impact on RHS membership income.
Given to the RHS in 1903, RHS Garden Wisley is a unique place of historical and horticultural value. With one of the world’s largest plant collections, with over 25,000 different species, it is the oldest and most horticultural diverse RHS Garden, where today hundreds of students are trained and over a million visitors normally enjoy the garden each year.
Since September 2022, when the works began, there has been an overall 25% reduction in visitors at RHS Wisley, severely impacting gate admissions and secondary income. Ever since, the garden has been plagued by “dozens of road closures” and significant disruption and traffic issues for visitors getting to RHS Garden Wisley. Customer data from the charity revealed that nearly 80% of members who visited Wisley less frequently in the last 12 months, attributed this to the M25/A3 roadworks near the garden. Additionally, 63% of non-visiting members in this period attributed not visiting Wisley, for the same reason.
In addition to substantial reductions in visitor numbers, the roadworks have forced the RHS to cancel prominent events such as the RHS’ Autumn Festival of Flavours, resulting in a £50K loss. Festival of Flavours visitor numbers in 2024 when the event returned, saw a 34% visitor reduction of some 10,000 less than 2022. The trend continues with its Wisley Flower Show achieving 31% less visitors in 2024 vs 2022 and the Winter illumination event Glow, was down by 50% in visitors in 2024 vs 2022, resulting in £360k loss in income.
Peak visiting times, such as the 2024 Summer holidays (July and August) RHS Garden visitor numbers were 30k down vs 2022, 13% down verses a normal year. During four M25 junction or slip road closures, RHS Garden Wisley received 43% less visitors compared to both the previous weekends, and the same weekend the prior year.
Substantial financial impact & consequences
The A3 work was due to be completed in summer 2025 but is now set to run to the end of the year, with final completion planned for 2026. The delays will further the substantial impact for the charity.
The RHS has stated that their losses will continue to rise to £11 million, when the roadworks end in 2026. A substantial sum for a gardening charity, but “small change compared to the £317 million scheme”, says the RHS.
With the A3 closing for works again this weekend (17th of January – 20th January), the RHS prepares once again for facing dramatically reduced visitors to the garden. The impact of the losses is such that the RHS has said that it will:
- Delay the development of new arboretums at its gardens and the planting of 4000 trees to investigate climate resilience for the next century
- Significantly reducing funding for scientific research to find nature-based solutions to some of the UK’s biggest environmental challenges
- Cut back on its community outreach work
- Reduce training to 10% fewer work based student horticulturists over the next 2 years.
RHS Petition
The RHS is now calling for Government intervention for compensation to enable vital science, community and education projects, now at risk, to proceed. Supported by Alan Titchmarsh CBE, the RHS are now calling on everyone who values horticulture and gardens for a greener, healthier future to sign the RHS’ petition urging Government to recognise RHS Wisley as a special case for compensation for the devastating losses caused by the National Highways roadworks to safeguard the RHS and its vital charitable work for the future.
Alan Titchmarsh CBE, RHS VP and VMH, says: “With the £6 million losses the RHS could have created 15 NHS wellbeing gardens and brought gardening and nature to hundreds more schools across the UK. £6 million would also fund 110 horticultural apprenticeships or 38 science PhD students supported by 76 UK leading scientists to find nature-based solutions to help issues like pollution, flooding and the biodiversity and the climate crises.
“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. 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.
“Every gardener, everyone who loves gardening and everyone who loves RHS Garden Wisley, one of our finest gardens, please sign our petition and stand up for our nation of gardeners.”
RHS Director General, Clare Matterson CBE said: “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 charitable work as vital to be protected.
“Whilst we’re grateful for the new road and the positive difference it is now beginning to make following months of disruption, going back to our original objections it continues to be a flawed solution that increases car miles around J10 by some 1 million kilometres per annum, affecting the Special Protection Area (Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area). We continue to believe circular routing could have been avoided, saving these increased car miles, by creating slip roads off the A3. 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.”
Matterson ends with a plea from gardeners to support the charity. “The RHS has been here supporting gardeners for over 220 years, today we now need your help to safeguard this charity for hundreds of years to come.”