Places Features

The story of codebreaking at this site and its massive contribution to the British war effort is probably one of the most important stories of the 20th century. Mathematicians and analysts broke encrypted codes sent by the German Luftwaffe, army and navy and in doing so, both directed our war strategy and saved lives.

Baroness McIntosh's parents met while cracking codes at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, as did Liberal Democrat Lord Clement Jones.

Their call for more government funding was supported by other peers, some of whom said they wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the codebreakers, and one credited Bletchley Park with the birth of the computer industry.

Struggle

But Simon Greenish, the CEO of Bletchley Park, said that although they've received significant investment for repairs, from English Heritage and Milton Keynes Council, they struggle to meet its day-to-day running costs, and would like more money to develop it into a world-class education and heritage centre.

The government’s response was that it didn’t want to be involved immediately but the general feeling is that there are more discussions to be had.

Simon Greenish told BBC Three Counties Radio why they needed the money.

“The park is doing very well at the moment” he said, “we’ve got a huge increase in visitor numbers and over the last year we have raised a million pounds, but all this money is going into repair of the ageing site. The difficulty we’ve got is the actual running costs.

“Baroness McIntosh has been pressing on our behalf to get the government to support us a little bit more to help us to actually run the site and to look after the huge numbers of visitors that we’re getting.”

Rise

The park has seen its visitor numbers rise over the past two years from 44,000 to what they anticipate will be something like 100,000 this year. They have asked for about £250,000 a year for about the next five years, and Simon explained what this would cover.

World War II buildings at Bletchley Park

“What we’ve asked the government for is to help us through the next few years whilst we’re developing the museum” he said.

“We are within a week or two of applying to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a significant grant to help us to re-develop the museum side. And in parallel we are fixing the ageing infrastructure but we just need a little bit of help to see us through between now and when this work is done.

“Once the work is done, our business planning clearly shows that financially we’ll become really quite robust, it’s just this interim period where we struggle just to keep everything going in the way that it should be.

“We will continue to do it [look after our visitors] but we could do so much more if we just had that little bit of help.

“The fact that we are getting more visitors is absolutely excellent but there’s no doubt it’s putting a strain on our ability to manage the process.”

Important

Simon also understands that we are in difficult times, but argues how important it is to keep this site going.

“I think we all understand that the availability of money generally is very tight at the moment” he said, “but this is one of the most important sites of Britain, it’s the site where the computer age started and it’s the site where the outcome of the Second World War was very significantly altered. It’s a very important site indeed and it’s vital that we make sure that it’s kept for future generations.”

And while the government’s initial response was disappointing, both he and the Baroness are hopeful that some help may come eventually.

The gardens at Bletchley Park

“I thought that the response we got was more encouraging than we’d been hoping for” said Baroness McIntosh.

“I think that there is an understanding that this is an extremely important site, that it’s of great historical interest and that there’s potential there for the museum to be a really important resource for learning as well.

“I suspect that it will be a struggle to get enough money to keep the whole thing going while all the reconstruction work is done, but I didn’t feel that the door was slammed in our faces.”

“The immediate answer was that the government didn’t want to get involved but I think that there’s probably more discussion to be had” added Simon, “and I think there’s general recognition of the importance of the site to the history of Britain, so I am confident that we will continue to talk to government. It may take some time, but the discussions will carry on.

“I think people are listening because they know how important Bletchley Park is to the nation” he said, “there’s a lot of support out there so I wouldn’t say that ultimately the answer is going to be no.”