Changes at Old Warden
 

Theres been some changes at Old Warden.

You used to be able to drop in for an hour, grab a tea and sandwich, watch any activities for a while and go on your way.
You paid for entrance into the museum and workshops.
I've done this many times, as well as being a member and paying for visits into the museum and airshows.

Not any more...

It'll now cost £15 to get through the gates, so it's all or nothing.
It appears that there may be a new ex-Duxford manager running the place...

Oh dear. Sounds like a 21st Century approach to punters ... as opposed to the 20th century customers and passengers. As I have commented in other forums, everyone now trying to get the money in the door to catch up on 2020. I sit to be corrected.

There's a 'Strategic Plan' (It downloads a PDF) available from the Shuttleworth website.
It includes the usual corporate speak:
The general complaint on the Facebook pages and forums is that they are sucking the unique character out of the place...

I have to say this is the most beautiful and romantic aerodrome I know of. Having a picknick and watching those Edwardians fly on a summer evening is a life changing experience.
Certainly worth 15 pounds.

Rather a lot of years ago, I flew into Old Warden with a flight of seven Vilga aircraft from the Polish navigation competition team. As a regular visitor in my PA-28, they needed a local guide. Loved going there in the days when you phoned up for PPR and that was it....apart from a low pass to 'clear the sheep from the runway'.

What a shame, I often dropped in for a quick bite to eat and coffee on the commute up or down the A1. Enjoyed the food as well as whatever was going on, plus it always felt good to give the profit to Old Warden rather than a faceless service station!

The whole charming atmosphere of the place could be in jeopardy if “modern” short term’ism business practices are introduced.

Hope it doesn’t end badly, but the writing may be on the wall?

Just go and buy a SVAS or Swiss Garden pass for £40-£50 and you’ll get entry for 12 months as many times as you want for the whole family and this includes the museum and Swiss gardens. Before I went to the museum once now been multiple times.

Check out their website ( before anyone says, no I don’t work there).

This should be kept and funded as a national treasure, seriously.

Flying in to visit Old Warden, I believe, is exceptionally good value

From the website:

“The landing fee of just £10 also grants you and you passengers free access to the attractions (normal fee is £15 per adult) on non-event days. However, we do ask you make an additional donation in the Collection shop for your passengers if you have come to visit the attractions.”

I went to the recent 75th anniversary Chipmunk event at Old Warden. Entry was via a long winded route through the estate rather than just through the gate by the hangars. Tickets were being issued by staff on the entry road who had a hand held card reader. Wishing to support the charity, I asked if I could gift aid my donation and was told they did not have the facility. During the day I called at the gift shop to ask them the same question and was told gift aid could only be done with online bookings.
I have paid at the ticket desk at many museums who have been only too happy to accept the extra money that gift aid brings. Old Warden must be either too wealthy or too dis-organised to turn down the chance of extra income.

Yep, as above. It's Summer holidays so took the children up there this week to sit in the cafe and have an ice cream and watch the goings-on. As described, entry is now via the long and winding road, only to be met with the ticket gang demanding £15 entry. "What even to just visit the cafe???". "Yes."
They lost a customer.

I'd guess that the bean-counters have looked at the profit margin on your tea and sandwich and decided that a sufficient proportion of drop-ins will pay the new charge to justify the change.

It has always been, quite rightly in my view, relaxed around Old Warden in respect of checking of who has bought a ticket and who hasn’t.

it was very easy to walk through the shop and onward to the displays with only a sticker on your jumper to indicate that you had paid.

I suspect a few of the cafe visitors may have been gaining free access to the museum and OW had to take more positive control of it - there is always a minority that will spoil it for the majority.

As someone stated earlier, buy an annual membership and gain unlimited access for 12 months - they have had next to no income for 12 months+.

Or the just haven’t thought it through...🤔

Just checked - join SVAS for £30 - unlimited entry to the Collection for 12 months (apart from event days which still gain a discount).

No pleasing some people.

People choose to go to places like this, so pay to get in. £15 is well worth it. If you can't afford £15, maybe consider how much it cost you to get there.

Seems to me that there are some points being missed here. Clearly there is a 'drop in' clientele for the cafe and a need to control entry to the wider site. I can't see any reason why both cannot be done without the need to charge £15 for someone who just wants a coffee and chill.

It wouldn't take much (surely?) to control entry to the hangars and avoid alienating what would appear to be a significant part of your faithful customers who only want a cup of tea. It's a bit smug to talk about 'how much it cost to get there' when OAPs and others have to watch every penny.

So yes, a £30 membership makes sense, but that's quite a few cups of tea.

Cynical me !
Ensure fewer visitors. Declare it unviable. Move the collection to Duxford.
Sell the site for profit. Hope I am wrong.

Excuse a nostalgic drift. About 70 yrs ago, infrequent visits by cycling several miles to look through the iron gates at aeroplanes, occasionally rewarded by open hanger doors.
The ultimate reward, an invite to take a closer look, walk round the hangers, smell the fabric dope and ancient engine oil … all for free.

Many years later, managed a flying visit in a ‘foxy’ aircraft; best untold - no wheel marks in the grass (honestly guv) … singed grass from the jet pipes ?

"customers who only want a cup of tea"

But they don't want JUST a cup of tea - they can get that at a Costa for £4 - they want a cup of tea AT OLD WARDEN - to breathe the sacred fumes and look out on the airfield. I know the feeling - when in the vicinity I often manage to stop for a coffee at the 'Bushe Cafe (no extra charge) whereas I'd probably get as good a cup in more comfortable surroundings down the road in Hartley Witney - but no aeroplanes in sight.

The answer is to restrict access to the whole site for those who want to see it and charge extra for those who "just want a coffee" - but not the full price - maybe £1 extra a head?

Why not just put the prices up a bit in the cafe, control access properly, and avoid any acrimony? Lack of imagination maybe?

I'm with esa-aardvark. The corporate-speak on the .pdf alone is enough to send shivers down my spine. Excellent for commuting to London from Biggleswade (59 mins), to say nothing of the new east-west (Oxford-Cambridge line), which will pass just north of Biggleswade.
Very heavy emphasis on training (which I imagine was how they got the lottery grant), but how many youngsters are interested in that sort of thing nowadays? We keep hearing that they are shying away from anything that looks vaguely like engineering.
Call me an old cynic, and I'll be happy to be proved wrong, but we've seen it all before. Coventry, Hatfield, Panshanger, Woodford, Wellesbourne Mountford, and many more. I suspect it is the thin end of a rather large wedge.

One other issue that has some relevance, particularly for the demographic of Shuttleworths supporters, is that even if you pay the SVAS membership, or the £15 to get in, you can no longer park anywhere near the hangars, you are parked in a field well away from the strip.
Fine for the able bodied, but many of the less agile are finding the half mile walk to the cafe/resturant/museum difficult.

The big take from the Facebook discussions is that the changes are eroding the relaxed atmosphere that Old Warden exudes.
It's no longer an airstrip with a museum, it's an 'attraction' with all of the corporate trappings that brings.

It sounds like the new managment know all about writing 'Strategic Plans', but sod-all about aeroplanes and aeroplane people...

…..it’s all so sad that an iconic place like this is seemingly being driven into the ground. Surely there must be another motive, is it being lined up to be a “much needed” new housing estate?

There are a couple of recent less-than-complimentary reviews of Shuttleworth on Tripadvisor.

One reviewer reports that he was told the new £15 charge was a "Covid measure" (!) and, like many other would-be visitors on the day, he voted with his feet.

Another remarked that notwithstanding the new pricing regime, basics like keeping the toilets clean and unblocked appeared to be beyond the ability of the management.

Tellingly, neither review attracted a response from Shuttleworth, which says it all.

I have spoken, I hope, comprehensible English all my life, including having much writing accepted by publishers with little or no changes.

I haven't got a clue what this rubbish means. Was it written in Serbo-Croat and then put through Google translate ?

In response to Nige 321, I think I saw a golf type buggy being used to convey the less agile from the "new" carparking area to the hangar/cafe area when I visited last week. What I didn't see were the usual cycle clubs, bikers and classic cars which used to pile in for a bacon bap and a coffee. I always thought they were an attraction in and of themselves, especially on a Sunday morning..

I regularly call into Old Warden when I’m passing for a coffee or tea. I have paid the full fees to go around the hangars on several occasions. The place has a unique charm. Regretfully this new, rather stupid idea will put paid to that. I’m guessing that all the corporate bs has been written by someone with a degree in museum management studies or something similar who believes they know how to run a museum. These people crop up everywhere, causing damage with silly ideas that don’t work outside a room full of flip charts and PowerPoint presentations. After the, often irretrievable, damage has been done they move on to another organisation to cause mayhem. I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen to Old Warden.

LB...... You sum it up very well. !!

……seconded!

Perhaps the following is more apt?……”Before the, often irretrievable, damage has come to light, they move on to another organisation to cause mayhem.”

Is it the same "expert" formerly from Duxford who knocked Flying Legends on the head ?

Well, I have been intending to make a pilgramage one last time - looks like I'd better get on with it. My late father had doneated things to them as his father was RFC (SE.5A pilot) and when we were children in Cambridge, visited many times.

The consultant garbage that WHBM quotes is high grade rubbish and I would not be in the least surprised at a long term agenda as suggested above.

The visitor experience manager at Old Warden has only been in the job since March. Before that he had a similar role at the RAF Museum. Doesn't bode well.......

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/james-ponton-a8081969

That figures.
It had to be a new nut-job that was ex-IWM or RAFM, after seeing that gobblydegook twaddle in the Strategic Plan.

As said above, knows how to write a politically correct Strategic Plan but knows the square root of FA about Old Warden and the people that visit there.

As also mentioned, the cafe drop visitors by classic car and bike clubs etc on Sunday run outs will likely now stop.

Just the words "strategic" and "plan" squirt a shot of cold urine into my heart...

Big fan of OW. Had the sheer luck of a Spit pax flight from there.

long story.