A CURLING rink used by gold medal winners has been saved from closure thanks to a £400,000 grant from sportscotland.
Kinross Curling Rink, home to Olympic gold medallist Debbie Knox and world's senior men's gold winner John Jo Kenny, was facing the prospect of closure in December this year due to EU regulations on the type of gas used in its refrigeration plant.
Local curlers have been fighting for five years to try to save the site and major renovation work will now take place this summer thanks to the funding from the sports body.
Blair Melville, chairman of Kinross Curling Trust, the charity which manages the ice rink, said: "We are absolutely delighted to receive final approval from sportscotland for a grant of £400,000. This, together with a grant of £125,000 from Perth & Kinross Council, grants from other organisations, and funds raised by curlers and curling clubs, means that the sport of curling is secure in Kinross for the foreseeable future."
The grant follows on from the success of the British Olympic curling teams at the recent Winter Games in Sochi where the men's team won silver and the women's team won bronze. The Paralympic team also secured a bronze.
Mr Melville added: "It was absolutely crucial that this project proceeded this year to capitalise on the upsurge in interest from the Olympics, and now future generations of curlers will have a quality facility in Kinross."
The Trust had raised more than £350,000 through personal donations from curlers, loans and fundraising.
The refurbishment is expected to be completed in time for the start of the playing season in September.
Stewart Harris, chief executive of sportscotland, said: "The Kinross Curling Trust put together a strong business case for investment from sportscotland, with community engagement at the heart of that bid, so we were delighted to make this award.
"On behalf of sportscotland I wish the Trust, and the local community every success with the project."
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