The coronavirus pandemic has punched a multi-million pound hole in Kew Gardens' finances, posing a potential threat to its future work.

In a statement to Richmond Nub News, the world-renowned botanical gardens appealed for the public's help to stem projected losses of £15 million this year alone.

A spokesperson for Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew described the effect of being closed throughout spring and reopening with reduced visitor numbers.

"As a charity, the income we earn helps to fund our globally important scientific research and care for our unique priceless living and dried collections of plants, fungi and seeds," the spokesperson said.

RBG Kew is appealing for donations on its homepage in a page titled 'We urgently need your help'.

Click here to donate on the Kew Gardens website. This is what the spokesperson told us.

Like many other public bodies and visitor attractions, RBG Kew was hit hard financially by having to close for over 70 days in the spring during lockdown, shut for traditionally busy days like Easter and Mothers' Day and cancelling activities like the Gruffalo programme and events like Kew the Music.

We rely heavily on visitor income (from members, day-paying guests, catering and the shops) to keep our finances healthy.

While we have reopened, numbers are still at a far lower level than this time last year and the loss of such income is predicted to amount to £15m this year.

We also, unfortunately, don't benefit from the funding being made available to cultural organisations by the government.

While we have some reserves, we still need to plug that gap and so we are hopeful that we will start to see a recovery in our visitor numbers at Kew Gardens in the coming months and that more people will donate to the organisation to support us.

We are also encouraging people to take up membership or buy a gift of membership for someone and to enjoy a great day out when they come, including spending in our shops and catering facilities.

Critically, as a charity, the income we earn helps to fund our globally important scientific research and care for our unique priceless living and dried collections of plants, fungi and seeds.

We will always do everything we can to keep the organisation operating as normal for our visitors as well as for our 1000-strong staff.

We don't think closure is a likely scenario at the present time but as we are currently relying on the government job retention scheme, and operating on a much-reduced staffing capacity, when this ends in October if the shortfall has not reduced we will need to consider options such as voluntary exit schemes and other steps.

We are already taking cost-cutting measures and postponing investment projects to 'plug some of the gap'.

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