National Trust suspends volunteer guides in row over tours at country house

The National Trust is embroiled in a row at a Cheshire country house after it stopped volunteers from giving personalised guided tours of the grounds.

Nearly 70 volunteers on the grounds of Dunham Massey, a medieval deer park, have had their roles suspended pending a year-long review following reports they were “unhappy and frustrated”.

The trust said it would conduct a review into the roles of volunteers following 18 months of informal consultations, including feedback that some park guides were not happy.

Tony Russell, who has volunteered as a park guide on the site for 17 years, told The Telegraph there had been some frustration following new rules that standardised guided tours.

“Previously each park guide had their own particular interests,” he said. “So on one tour you might hear about the birds, on another it would be the local history.

“The new management came in and changed the way they do them. They wanted to fix particular routes. Consequently, a large number of guides have refused to do them.”

He said there was a sense that the management had “messed around with something that has worked for years”.

The NT said the previous walking routes were not always accessible and the new standardised tours had been devised with volunteers.

It added that it had received positive feedback about the new routes from many of them.

It also suggested that much of the frustration that led to the pause in volunteer roles was because of a change in the relationship with park rangers, who are employed by the charity.

The trust said park rangers were increasingly supporting the organisation’s conservation projects outside the grounds, which made it difficult for them to manage volunteers “in an active and supportive way”.

In 2020, the charity launched a new project working across the Cheshire countryside around Dunham Massey to create woodland and restore wildflower meadows, and restore stretches of the River Bollin some 10 miles away.

The NT has increased its focus on nature conservation in recent years, including plans to create 25,000 hectares of wildlife and biodiversity habitats by 2025.

The work around Dunham Massey is part of two major nature and conservation projects backed by the Government’s Green Recovery Challenge Fund.

A spokesman for the NT said: “No volunteers are being ‘sacked’ and we are hugely grateful for all the time, energy and skills that our volunteers bring to Dunham Massey.

“We need volunteering to be a positive and mutually beneficial experience for everyone and where it isn’t, we must act to address that.

“As some park guide volunteers have told us over 18 months of informal consultation that they are not happy, we are pausing the role for the time being to enable a review of future needs.

“The aim of the review is to ensure that future volunteer roles in the park prioritise care of the parkland and a positive volunteering experience.”

Mr Russell said that the majority of volunteers did not want to leave the role but suggested that he and many others were unlikely to return if the charity was committed to a year-long review.