Pavilion of dreams

It is good to see progress is being made to find a new home for the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST).

In what will be the first phase of the plan to create a marine discovery centre, COAST proposes to move its headquarters to the former Lamlash tennis courts pavilion.

It is a project it has been keen to take the community along with every step of the way, and it is good it is willing to take over the hiring of tennis racquets and putting equipment once it moves in next year.

Taking over a facility which was underused may just give it a new lease of life, not just to COAST, but to the whole site. Yes, down the line, two of the tennis courts are likely to go to make way for the new discovery centre, but the others will be upgraded so there is no reason why the two facilities cannot have a bright future together.

The tennis court pavilion is an ideal site for the COAST HQ. It overlooks the Lamlash Bay No Take Zone (NTZ), which was the first real building block for the environmental organisation.

As well as offices, the pavilion will provide it with a multi-use space for exhibitions and meeting rooms for the many marine experts, from all over the world, who regularly visit COAST to tap into the extensive knowledge it has of the coastal waters around the island, which are now further conserved by the South Arran Marine Protected Area (MPA).

So the new home for COAST will allow it to have a much higher public profile than its cramped, rented accommodation at the back of Lamlash allows at present.

Of course with the plans drawn up and submitted for permission there is another stark reality – cash. COAST is at present busy writing funding applications to as many organisations as it can think of.

We hope that raises the necessary money to allow works to begin and let COAST move premises as soon as possible. But then the real work begins because the next big step after that will be to design the marine discovery centre.

Exciting times indeed.