How coronavirus has put some of Australia's most treasured buildings at risk

The National Trust of Australia has closed all houses, museums, galleries and gardens in compliance with the government’s social distancing requirements around the country.

In NSW, the trust sent its more than 2000-strong volunteer base home and stopped all visitation overnight.

The state’s chief executive Debbie Mill said it had, in effect, turned off up to 60 per cent of its revenue stream overnight that once helped the not-for-profit organisation maintain all sites in NSW.

She said the state’s history and heritage were at stake if these buildings and sites were not maintained properly.

“These places hold so much history of NSW and for some of our sites, if you think of Old Government House in Parramatta, it has world heritage listing. It’s critical from a worldwide perspective.

“In not caring for it, we’re risking damaging our heritage.

“I don’t want to be doomy and gloomy; there are ways to repair and bring these places back. But again that comes at a much greater cost. Dealing with a spot of a problem is a lot harder than a problem that has filled a whole room.”

Ms Mills said while they were under significant pressure, it was under control for the time being.

“We have cancelled 26 events across the state and postponed seven events, including our National Trust Heritage Awards ceremony,” Ms Mills said.

The trust has also closed all 23 sites and key heritage attractions, including the world heritage-listed Old Government House in Parramatta, Everglades House and Garden in Leura and the Norman Lindsay Gallery in Faulconbridge.

Collectively, these three sites alone would attract more than 21,000 visitors between March and June, according to the trust.

“They are key revenue streams that have basically evaporated. They don’t exist at the moment,” Ms Mills said.

She said the trust had been hit with a double whammy.

“There are two challenges there … for the volunteers themselves many of them are of a mature age, which puts them under the category of staying at home,” Ms Mills said. “But it’s also presented a new challenge for us – heritage properties need attention.”

She said they had resorted to mobilising their staff to carry out as much maintenance of these sites and properties as possible.

“We’ve been setting a roster system using existing staff to open up properties to provide the airing they need. For the gardens, we’ve been engaging local gardening and landscaping services,” she said. “That’s also a benefit for the community businesses that are still in operation.”

Ms Mills said they had also put security monitoring in place to ensure the sites remained safe.

“How much that cost is at the moment, I’m not sure. But it depends on the next round of restrictions from the government.

“It’s a day-by-day, hour-by-hour proposition. If the restrictions change in what people are allowed to do and where people are able to go, then that would change.”

“We’re quite conscious as well at some point we’ll come out of all of this. We really want our properties and gardens to be able to welcome people back.

“We want our properties to be available to be an oasis for those communities that are allowed to go out and about again.”

In Victoria, the trust has closed all 41 properties, including Old Melbourne Gaol, Rippon Lea Estate and Como House, which would see about 50,000 visitors go through their doors over autumn.

The trust has also cancelled the 2020 Australian Heritage Festival, which has been a national staple since 1980. Last year it attracted more than 350,000.

Victoria’s chief executive Simon Ambrose said the state’s trust has also been hard hit because it received minimal government funding.

“In a normal time, the majority of our income, which isn’t a significant amount, is derived from people interacting with our properties. It’s either through admissions or events like a wedding, a party or filming,” Mr Ambrose said.

“In this current climate, we’ve had to shut all of our properties. That means about 75 per cent of our income was turned off overnight.”

Mr Ambrose said the government’s JobKeeper stimulus package had helped retain staff.

“With income drying up, the support from the government from the JobKeeper stimulus package is great. It means we can keep the majority of our casuals and part-time employees on the books otherwise we wouldn’t be able to support them.”

He said while they were still planning events, including weddings for the next year, they were focusing on keeping the heritage alive online.

“We’ve got a lot of digital content from exhibitions and activities that occurred in the past. We’ll be reinvigorating that and making sure that’s more accessible.

“We’ve also asked people to consider supporting the trust to help us keep the lights on.”