It is most unfortunate that in a charity like the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, major decisions that will shape the future of the organisation are taken by a Director who has only a limited understanding and an even more limited appreciation of how his own scientists function. Kew’s director, Richard Deverell, is a former BBC manager. The Trustees, accomplished though they may be in their own professions, are essentially amateurs in botanical science and conservation. They take crucial decisions in a matter of hours, or even minutes, based on information and opinions provided by the Director. As a result of this outdated governing model, Kew management can and do take decisions that may go against the expert knowledge of the staff. To maintain the illusion that the Director does not operate as an autocrat, he claims that the decisions are taken ‘on the advice’ of the Trustees. In reality, it is plain that the Trustees advise what the Director wants them to advise.

              The Director’s brainchild, the New Herbarium Project, aims to move the world-famous Herbarium at Kew to a business park near Reading. Kew Herbarium staff maintain that this move is unnecessary and a massive waste of public funds. While the exact costs are still to be determined, Kew management has suggested a sum of £200 million for the new Herbarium building at Reading; for the subsequent Science Quarter project on the Kew site, as much as £300 million may be required.

              So far, DEFRA have poured about £7 million down what may well become at least a half a billion pound project drain. Architects and consultants have been paid, project managers appointed, many Kew scientists and curator-botanists have expended time. Kew staff fear that Mary Creagh, minister for DEFRA, nature and Kew, who recently  dined at Kew with the Director and Trustees, will agree some additional DEFRA funds in the current spending round to keep the plan alive until the economy recovers enough for the total to be requested by Deverell.

              Although Kew management likes to downplay the magnitude of the internal opposition against the Herbarium move (‘some of you may not be happy about it’) and acts as if the decision is set in stone, the strength of views of Kew staff on the matter is clear from the highlights of the survey of impacts of the herbarium move released by Prospect (union for science and associated professional staff). The results speak for themselves, see below the document sent out to Kew members on Friday.

              Meanwhile, teams in the Herbarium have been shown plans of the intended new building for the first time (necessitated by the need for public consultation at Reading prior to planning permission) and were shocked to learn that they will have no option to stay at Kew, contrary to what management had previously stated. Instead, they must either move house or face a long commute to a building that lacks many of the advantages of the current herbarium complex. In any case, the management envisions the remarkable situation that Kew’s world-leading experts on plant diversity will no longer work at the Kew site but will be isolated, away from the living plant collections, and away from colleagues in other branches of Kew science, to a business park somewhere between a film studio and a motorway. It doesn’t take much imagination to predict what this will do for collaboration and research within Kew. It will be disastrous.

New Herbarium Project: Impact Survey 

The Herbarium Impact Survey for staff of RBG, Kew was conducted between April and September 2024 by Prospect.

We now have the final data breakdown of your responses, and over 25 pages of your comments. A detailed analysis of the survey will be completed and made available to members in future weeks.

For now, here are some key points:

228 Respondents (207 Science,19 Horticulture, 1 MCE, 1 Resources

73% of people say this project is negatively affecting their well being 

61 members of Science staff will have to leave Kew if their role moves to TVSP

Over 100 Science staff won't be able to, or don’t know if they can, relocate to TVSP

82 % The percentage of respondents who strongly believe this move will negatively impact Kew's ability to:

Attract and support visiting researchers

Train the next generation of plant, fungal, and horticultural scientists

70% of respondents considered the proposed move would negatively impact Kew’s mission to "understand and protect plants and fungi, for the wellbeing of people and the future of all life on

The Herbarium Impact Survey for staff of RBG, Kew was conducted April-Sept 2024 by Prospect, the Union for Science and associated professional staff. RBG, Kew management agreed that Prospect include non-Union members to make the survey more representative of science staff (not all staff are Prospect members), so Prospect members were permitted to send the link to colleagues, although not to use the staff mailing list. The survey consisted of 10 questions with multiple-choice answers, and three boxes for comments. The google survey generated report is 32 pages long (of which c. 25 pages are comments). A detailed analysis of the survey will be completed and made available to members and staff by Prospect in future weeks. Here are the highlights;

•228 staff participated, 207 in Science and 19 in Horticulture (1 each in MCE and Resources), and based in the Herbarium (136), Jodrell (51), Wakehurst (18) or other (23).

•The majority of respondents were not in favour of the move to Thames Valley Science Park (TVSP).Most said the decision-making process had impacted their well-being negatively (73%).Asked how the NHP as currently envisioned affected their future well-being, 62% said negatively and 12% said they didn’t know and that this is affecting their well-being negatively, while 13% didn’t know and said it was not affecting their well-being.

•27% (61 respondents) said they would most likely leave Kew if their role moves permanently to the new site., and a further 25% (57 respondents) were clear that they will not be able to relocate. Meanwhile 21% (49) don’t know if they can relocate, 18% (42) are not concerned, and 7% (16 )can relocate.

•65% of staff (149) expect the move to negatively impact their work and another 21% are unsure but concerned about the impact it may have, while only 2% expect a positive impact.

•Impact on visiting researchers of having the herbarium (and associated library collections) at TVSP was seen as negative by 82% (187) respondents and 82% of respondents also considered it would be negative for Kew’s commitment to training the next generation of plant and fungal scientists (e.g. Kew MSc students, Kew Hort. Dip., PhD students). These percentages remain over 80% among respondents based in the Jodrell.

•70% (160 respondents) considered the proposed move would be negative for Kew’s mission statement “to understand and protect plants and fungi, for the wellbeing of people and the future of all life on earth” yet 8% considered it positive.

•Numbers of respondents who feel positive about various aspects of the move were always below 10%, even when looking at replies for each site (Herbarium, Jodrell, Wakehurst) separately. When considering all staff together, those who feel positive represented less than 5% in almost all cases, except that 6% of staff (13) said that moving the herbarium (and associated library collections) would be positive for their well-being.

Please support us scientists / curator botanists, at RBG, Kew to stop this crazy plan before the government decide to start wasting what will the first of at least £500 million of taxpayers money on an unnecessary shiny new building intended as Richard Deverell’s “legacy”. Please help us avoid calamity for R.B.G, Kew and the effort to discover the planet’s plant species before they become extinct. We need more names and comments on the petition. Please send the petition link to like-minded people so that we can get more attention from the decision makers to stop this proposal.

If you live in the UK, please consider raising this issue with your MP. If you have written already, please write again since the UK has a new Labour government and there is chance now of a definite cancellation.

Here is how to do this in 3 steps:

1. Go to https://www.writetothem.com  enter your postcode and click on the displayed MP name.

2. In your own words, keeping it short and clear, tell your MP what you think about  the planned move of Kew Herbarium & ask your MP to raise this with the DEFRA minister for Kew, Mary Creagh. Has DEFRA not got something better to spend £500 million of taxpayers money on?

3. Fill in your email, address and name and click on SEND.

Please, help us getting to 20,000 names by signing and sharing the link to this petition https://chng.it/vsDT2xmKXN to avoid catastrophe and Keep the Kew Herbarium at Kew!

For further updates also follow us on Twitter (X), Facebook or Instagram @KewKeepers. 

Please help us stop this crazy plan

Curator Botanist savekewherbarium@gmail.com