Perth’s Dewars Centre has been saved from closure after fears it could shut in the summer due to soaring energy costs.
Concern had been raised that the “curling capital” of Scotland could be left without a rink if the centre, alongside Perth Leisure Pool, were to close.
Dewars Centre, which opened in 1990, is renowned for its state-of-the-art curling rink with Olympic-standard ice, and regularly holds national and international competitions within its eight-rink hall, attracting players from all over the world.
Live Active Leisure, which runs sports and leisure facilities across Perth and Kinross, confirmed it has agreed “a range of measures” that will allow both venues to remain open for the next 12 months.
READ MORE: Staff redundant as Edinburgh video conference firm goes bust
The leisure provider’s board of directors also agreed that there would be no redundancies at a meeting on Thursday.
However, Live Active Leisure said that users of its facilities should expect to see prices increase by between 10 and 15 per cent, although concession rates will be frozen at current levels.
David Maclehose, Chairperson of Live Active Leisure, appealed to locals to make use of the facilities at their disposal.
He said: “Customer generated income is vital to organisations like Live Active Leisure to remain viable and sustainable. Whilst I appreciate these are difficult times, we need your support more than ever, and therefore I would urge anyone who values the provision of our public leisure services to please use your local venue as often as you can.
"Not only is this an investment in yourself and your own physical and mental wellbeing, but it’s an investment in your community as every penny spent in one of our venues is reinvested back into the company.”
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 here