RE: TREDEGAR House’s upkeep: The £10 million disclosed as paid by Newportonians since 2012 is rightly in the public domain.

There remains the question of what the mechanism will be for accountability of this vast sum. 

The National Trust is outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act although its mission statement talks of openness, transparency and accountability. Newport Council and its heritage department should answer the same question.

Among our other heritage icons the Newport Ship, the Castle, (an eye sore!) the Museum and Library Service, and Transporter Bridge (crying out for £10 million) are tourist attractions that are a credit to the city’s history, but are kept short of funding, should cite this precedent for similar consideration by the council.

Tredegar House is Newport’s responsibility too, we are the freeholders and should be better listened to.

If the National Trust is serious about being seen as providing value for money to Newport it should  also be much more approachable about adding and extending newly discovered Morgan artefacts into the House Collections something that in the last few years of their management has been lacklustre, with several items of silver, paintings, and antiques lost to Newport. 

William Cross
Sutton Road
Newport