T.A.N.T. Newsletter #3
TANT AGM Newsletter
On May 8th TANT held its 20th anniversary AGM at Broadclyst, Exeter. Firstly, a huge thank you to all those who attended on the day and made it such a lively and informative event. Our speaker was Giles Hunt, the National Trust Land and Estates Director, who was accompanied by his colleague James Fuller, Head of Estate Management.
Giles provided us with a presentation on a general overview of the National Trust Let Estate including post-Covid recovery, planned improvements and the current situation for Long Leaseholders and then opened the floor for questions … of which there were many.
It soon became apparent that there was a strong contingent of National Trust farmers who were keen to raise current and potential future issues relating to working a National Trust farm. In view of the fact that there were so many concerns raised, we are going to organise a Zoom meeting specifically for farmers – more information coming soon.
Queries were raised about various tenant problems including rising energy costs, rent reviews, decent homes standards, repairs and the National Trust’s policy on converting existing homes into holiday lets.
Due to the number of queries Giles and James kindly agreed to return after the AGM business had concluded and hold private one-to-one surgeries with concerned tenants which proved very popular and kept them very busy until around 4pm. TANT were very grateful to them both for the level of time and consideration shown toward tenants who had very real concerns and we look forward to hearing the follow up actions to the matters raised.
The AGM business included an introduction from the Chair, Jo Leighton with a round-up of TANT’s activities since the 2019 AGM, followed by a presentation by Peter Bate, TANT Development Officer, on the workings of the National Trust Council as he currently sits in TANT’s Council seat, a position that will be taken over by our President, Andrew Turner-Cross, in 2023 when Peter’s term comes to an end next year.
All current members of the TANT committee were re-elected and we also had one additional volunteer to join the committee – Neil Loden – who has subsequently been welcomed as our newest committee member.
The minutes of the AGM can be found here.
The event was a real success and we welcomed the opportunity to meet and chat with our members. A big thank you to Heather and her team from Martinsfield Farm who provided the catering, the team at Broadclyst Victory Hall for all their help with the venue and the local Broadclyst community for welcoming TANT to their village.
A huge thank you as well to all of you who are receiving this newsletter for the first time because you have joined our mailing list, we really appreciate all of your support and if you know anyone else who may be interested in receiving newsletters and updates from TANT, please direct them to our website where they can find all the information they need to get in touch with us.
On that note, we are very pleased to announce that the winners of the £100 prize were Dr and Mrs Jones of Salcombe, Devon.
Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future topics you can contact us via email; [email protected], Facebook or Twitter.
We look forward to hearing from you!
