Zoo policy on families is positively ‘Jurassic’

• THE venerable Zoological Society of London – founded in 1826 – or just London Zoo to the rest of us mere mortals, is in danger of depriving children of bonding with their endangered furry friends.

It is also depriving the zoo itself of the chance to introduce tomorrow’s environmentalists to the joys of conservation.

The zoo’s family membership policy is positively Jurassic and bears no relation to the shape and size of the typical 21st-century family.

At £199 a pop, or £261 for the “Gold” package, the zoo’s pricey one-year family memberships are limited to two adults and up to four children (who all must live at the same address).

A quick check of my WhatsApp contacts throws up no families with four kids. And I know a lot of local families.

What’s more, the same contacts list does reveal a sizeable contingent of families whose two adults definitely do not reside at the same address.

The ZSL directors must have dug up this Swiss Family Robinson-shaped two-plus-four family (all living at the same address) while clambering across a desert island in search of a breeding pair of dodos.

Back home, in the boardroom, they refuse point blank to introduce more flexibility to their family policy claiming that, as a charity, they can’t afford it.

According to the Charity Commission for England and Wales, ZSL’s 2023 income was just short of £80million. The zoo, incidentally, also owns its own land, so it looks unlikely to go bear-belly up any time soon.

Meanwhile, out there, financially challenged families, their kids being cared for by an army of grannies, aunties, separated dads and working mums (on weekends), are effectively excluded from one of the finest local attractions we have here in Camden.

ZSL is refusing to review their membership policy to include, for example, four named adults on the family memberships, allowing families greater flexibility for accompanying their children to the zoo.

Does this fossilised approach to customer relations qualify the ZSL board of directors for the honour of being the last of the dinosaurs.

Or dodos?

KIRSTEN DE KEYSER, NW1