Ratho Adventure Centre Refurbishment

Two years ago  a wonderful new facility was opened near Edinburgh - The Ratho Adventure Centre. Built in an old quarry the centre was to be a flagship for adventure sports in Scotland and while a private venture,  it also attracted considerable support from public organisations such as SportScotland. For those who don't know it, there are wonderful indoor climbing facilities, shops, restaurants, conference and office space.

I visited it just as it opened to watch some of the World Indoor Climbing Championships, a big high profile event and it was fantastic to watch. Sadly it all went wrong pretty quickly and after only 6 months or so the Centre went into administartion. It's still open but that early potential has not been realised and some of the work on the site has still to be completed.

For work reasons I was near Edinburgh yesterday and found myself quite close to Ratho - looking for somewhere to have lunch. I thought it would be interesting to pop into the Centre and discovered there had been a number of developments. There were leaflets detailing the fact that Edinburgh City Council had taken over the Centre from the start of October and that they had committed £4.5m to completing the facility. Urgent repairs are being undertaken and they hope to have it all completed within a year.

It was pleasing to see that something is being done but sad to see how quickly it had run down in only two years - I hope that the Council can make that early promise come to fruition. My visit was neverthess worthwhile - I had a very enjoyable lunch in the 5th floor Stone Room restaurant overlooking the Climbing Arena. There is also a branch of Tiso and they have a fantastic sale on at the moment. If you want any new boots, t-shirts rucksacks or fleeces there are some excellent bargains to be had - I got a new pair of Columbia fabric Gore-Tex boots for £35.

So if you get a chance get out to Ratho to support this facility and help ensure that it has a future.

Comments

[Gwen]

Edinburgh itself is an adventure centre. I love the city a lot it one of the emost beautiful ones.