Poor property management

Cottages lie derelict on the Sherborne Estate

Tenanted properties were better managed when they were the responsibility of qualified Land Agents and when estates had their own building maintenance teams.

Dear Editor

The reason the National Trust manages its housing stock badly and inefficiently is that the estates are managed by accountants and not by qualified land agents who realize the wickedness of leaving properties empty and who treat tenants honourably.

Additionally, most estates have abolished their building maintenance teams and so have to go out to contract where there are not enough good conservation building firms. The downgrading of the Land Agents was beginning in my time, as was the abolition of our direct labour maintenance teams.

A former employee of the National Trust