Following the appointment of Hilary McGrady as Director General on March 12th, we wrote congratulating her on the promotion, and enquired about a statement- of -intent from the Trust on plastic usage at the Charity.

Hilary McGrady
Director General’s Office .
Heelis
Kemble Drive
Swindon SN2 2NA                                                                                           12th March 2018

Dear Hilary McGrady

Congratulations from the volunteers at Ashridge on becoming Director General.
We publish a Blog (ashridgevolunteers .blog) in which we raise environmental issues and in January as a New Year’s resolution we challenged our volunteers to reduce their plastic purchase intake for the year ahead. This was in response to the plastic pandemic infecting the environment.
In December Mr Gove the Environment Secretary, haunted by the images in the Blue Planet II – BBC production, announced a twenty five year plan to improve the U K’ s environmental record with particular reference to plastic. This was followed by Theresa May in January outlining the Government’s proposals.
Since then a number of national companies and organisations have issued statements on their intended plans to reduce plastic usage. Also in December Lisa Svvensson for the United Nations issued a statement to the BBC about the ruination of the ecosystems of the oceans.
In January Water UK issued a national campaign for every shop, cafe and business to offer free water by 2021. In February the Queen banned plastic straws, cutlery and bottles from the Royal Estates, and Friends of the Earth launched their Plastic Free Friday campaign.
In January Helen stated that restoring a healthy natural environment was part of the National Trust’s ten year plan, but so far there has been no statement issued on plastic proliferation. As a leading environmental charity one would expect the Trust to have issued a statement by now outlining the approach to plastic reduction on the Estates and at the Properties.
Your comments would be appreciated.

Yours sincerely

Rowan Trimmer
ex volunteer.

A statement was issued by the Trust and an action plan  launched on April 3rd, and we received a reply dated April 4th as detailed below.

The link to the National Trust website is here.