National Trust bars long serving volunteer after he flags website errors

The National Trust has blacklisted a long serving volunteer after he highlighted spelling mistakes and factual errors on its website, a case that has reignited criticism of how the charity treats volunteers who fall foul of its internal culture standards.

Andy Jones, 71, who volunteered for more than a decade, compiled a detailed dossier cataloguing thousands of errors across the Trust’s online material and sent it directly to the organisation’s director general in the hope the mistakes would be corrected.

After receiving no response, Mr Jones sent a sharply worded complaint to his local branch criticising senior leadership. He was subsequently told his language was “not in line with our organisational values” and informed he would no longer be allowed to volunteer at any National Trust site.

His case follows a series of disputes involving volunteers, including the suspension earlier this year of more than a dozen gardeners on the Isle of Wight, after managers said their conduct did not align with the Trust’s “inclusive culture”.

Critics say the incidents reflect a broader push by the organisation towards a progressive agenda, which has included reassessing historic links to slavery and colonialism and encouraging staff to wear rainbow lanyards. The pressure group Restore Trust accused the charity of disciplining or sidelining volunteers for their views.

Years of service and a catalogue of errors

Mr Jones volunteered for 14 years, initially at Woolbeding in West Sussex and later at Hindhead Commons and the Devil’s Punch Bowl in the Surrey Hills. His roles ranged from gardening and waste burning to answering membership queries and guiding visitors on walks.

Last year, acting independently, he reviewed the Trust’s website and assembled a dossier of mistakes. These included typographical errors such as “toliets” and “permanant”, grammatical slips like “take a peak”, and factual inaccuracies including the misspelling of pre Raphaelite artist Lucy Madox Brown’s name.

In November 2024, he emailed the Trust’s director general, Hilary McGrady, asking if the dossier could be passed to those responsible for correcting the errors. He followed up in January 2025, again politely, but received no reply.

Frustrated, Mr Jones resigned from his local volunteering role and sent an angry email to his manager criticising the lack of acknowledgment. A manager replied that she was “really disappointed by the language” used and said the relationship had “irreversibly broken down”. Mr Jones was told he would not be considered for any future volunteer positions.

He later accepted his wording was inappropriate but said he was under severe stress at the time while undergoing treatment for stage two prostate cancer.

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“I think the National Trust is a brilliant idea and has achieved an astonishing amount,” he said. “But its senior management is past its use by date and the organisation needs to be reinvented by new leadership that can bring it properly into the 21st century.”

Wider concerns over volunteer treatment

A Trust spokesperson said no volunteer would be banned simply for pointing out grammatical errors and said relationship breakdowns usually follow a series of incidents.

Mr Jones’s experience echoes that of 13 volunteer gardeners at Mottistone Manor on the Isle of Wight, whose work was paused indefinitely in June. Managers said there had been instances of behaviour or language that did not reflect the culture the Trust aimed to uphold, but did not provide specific examples.

Graham Field, 76, who spoke on behalf of the gardeners, said decades of expertise were lost “with a cold and dismissive click of a send button”.

Restore Trust said many volunteers felt excluded despite the charity’s emphasis on inclusion. “Diversity appears to stop at diversity of opinion,” a spokesman said.

In a statement, a National Trust spokesperson said the organisation worked with tens of thousands of volunteers and was deeply grateful for their contribution. The Trust added that while disputes do arise, it provides support through agreed processes and could not comment on individual cases due to confidentiality obligations.