Campaigners have won their fight to retain a marine biological station on the Isle of Cumbrae after an agreement was reached to transfer ownership to the Field Studies Council.
The University of London announced yesterday that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the FSC to secure a sustainable future for its Marine Biological Station at Millport.
The agreement will see ownership of the physical assets of the station, including land, buildings and other facilities, being transferred to the FSC on January 1, 2014. The move will save around 30 jobs.
Leading academics from six Scottish universities launched a campaign last year to save the scientific research centre after the Higher Education Funding Council for England withdrew the £400,000 it gives the University of London to run the station.
Maureen Boylan, the University's Deputy Secretary, who led the negotiations, said: "This is very good news indeed for the station, the island community and the local economy. We are delighted that the FSC, with its outstanding reputation in environmental education, has agreed to work with us to find a sustainable future for this valuable asset."
Rob Lucas, FSC chief executive, said "This is an exciting opportunity for the FSC. Our vision for Millport is for it to become a flagship for field studies in Scotland, building on its reputation for high quality field research and university teaching.
"The marine location will provide the perfect complement to the field studies we have been developing at our Kindrogan field centre."
Education Secretary Mike Russell said: "I welcome this agreement which is a big step forward in helping to secure for the long term future of the University Marine Biological Station Millport which has suffered years of under investment from the University of London.
"Many people have been working tirelessly to maintain the provision of marine field studies at Millport in order to secure local jobs, take advantage of the environment and history of the site and underpin the economy of the Island of Cumbrae."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article