THE WAY the National Trust is run was this week debated in the House of Lords, in the wake of the Golden Cap affair.

The discussion was prompted by the proxy votes system, which resulted in the failure of a resolution put forward by West Dorset members at the trust's annual meeting last month.

The issue was highlighted in West Dorset by members appalled at the handling of management changes on the Golden Cap estate.

Protestors lost the resolution because chairman Charles Nunneley used 24,861 proxy votes - without those the resolution would have been carried by 42,449 to 19,405.

It is the chairman's use of these proxy votes that has prompted unease, which has led to the debate in the Lords.

The debate heard from many members who were unhappy about how the trust was being run. It was initiated by Lord John Patten, who told the Lords: "There are regional councils of the National Trust, but they are nominated by the centre and there is no local election to them. Take the recent cause celebre - some would say scandal - over the Golden Cap estate in the National Trust's care in Dorset."

Baroness Mallalieu said: "In recent years, the style and direction of the trust's leadership has changed.

"What has gone wrong needs to be debated not only in the carefully orchestrated confines of stage-managed AGMs but publicly and in Parliament.

"In essence the trust appears to have stopped listening to locals, to its tenants, to its members and to its volunteers. It has become over-centralised, over-bureaucratic and unresponsive.

"After many years of pressure, this year at the AGM the numbers of those proxy votes and how they were cast have for the first time been made public."

Lord Mancroft said that the trouble with the trust was that it was so busy communicating its vision to the outside world that it had become unable to communicate within its own organisation.

"A substantial group of members and supporters of the trust in west Dorset proposed a resolution at the last AGM criticising the trust's management on the Golden Cap estate."

New West Dorset NT property manager Patrick Woodford said: "There are probably very good reasons to review these things.

"The National Trust needs to shake itself up sometimes. The trust has taken on board already a lot of what was flagged up at the AGM and around the country."