Protesters demand battle site rethink
A fringe group of Scottish independence protesters met at Bannockburn Visitor Centre last Friday to oppose its closure.
About eight people attended the Action for Scotland protest led by controversial hardline independence supporter Sean Clerkin.
Mr Clerkin gained notoriety as part of the radical independence Scottish Resistance group which gatecrashed both Labour and Conservative campaign events in the mid-2010s.
He was also involved in a protest outside confectioner Tunnock’s factory in Lanarkshire in 2016 over adverts on the London Underground rebranding their tea cakes as ‘The Great British Tea Cake’.
The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) came under fire earlier this month when it emerged that they intend to mothball the awardwinning centre until the season 2022/23.
Stirling SNP politicans pointed to the centre’s role in drawing tourist business to the district. Stirling MSP Bruce Crawford said the prolonged closure is unjustifiable and that NTS had to think “more imaginatively”.
NTS said it expects to lose half its income this year, followed by a third in 2021, as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
Outgoing NTS chief executive
Simon Skinner said that the facility cost £600,000 more to run than it brought in last year, adding the centre “is not the easiest place to viably enact social distancing”.
Following Friday’s protest Mr Clerkin called on the Scottish Government to step in and take on the running of the £9m Bannockburn Visitor Centre, which attracted more than 44,000 visitors last year.
He said: “NTS is not a fit organisation to run Bannockburn Visitor Centre and the battle site. They are not financially capable of doing so.
“We believe that the site should be handed over to the people of Scotland. The Scottish
Government should administer it on their behalf. After all, it was taxpayers’ money that built the heritage centre.
“It is an act of cultural vandalism to close this centre for that length of time. The centre has a vital educational role. Without it schoolchildren will miss out on learning about the battle.”