Here we go again.
Months after temporarily avoiding the loss of Scotland’s most iconic curling facility—Dewars Centre in Perth—the local city council is headed for another nail-biting decision that could still see Eve Muirhead’s inaugural training ground eliminated.
The loss of the facility would, according to Scottish Curling, be “cataclysmic.”
An August report was to inform council of the benefits of multipurpose arena use, including skating and hockey, but focused “too much on curling” according to Muirhead.
The retired curling star serves on the board of Dewars Centre and also writes a column for The Courier, which quoted her as proposing a Community Asset Transfer to leave the facility in the hands of the curling community.
Council members are once again being besieged by the curling community as they scramble to make a decision on the matter, which has been a boiling cauldron since January.
A recent email from area curling stakeholders exhorts curlers to take action and lobby council members who “have put forward a recommendation for a PH2O project which does not contain ice facilities or leisure swimming!”
The email states that following three months of Council consultations the curlers have since been “cut out of the discussions.”
The facility is home to 500 curling clubs and more than 700 curlers. Of the 1,373 children who participated in a “Curling’s Cool” program, over 95% currently attend state schools in Perth and Kinross.
The curlers say forward thinking is required. Reactive maintenance is expected to cost upwards of 56 million pounds over 25 years whereas a new energy-efficient building would cost £13 million and be cheaper to operate.
Perth & Kinross Council will vote on Wednesday. Ironically, the nearby offices of World Curling—a potential partner in Muirhead’s Community Asset Transfer solution—will be virtually empty, as the organization hosts their annual Congress in Montreal.
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