Country charm delivers £65m to economy

Visitors are wowed by family-friendly day out

Almost 190,000 visitors poured through the Royal Highland Show turnstiles over the last four days – 56,000 of them on Saturday alone – as rural and country people savoured the best of Scottish food, farming and the countryside.

As stallholders counted their takings last night, organisers estimated that over the course of the event visitors spent around £8 million on shopping and show organisers the Royal Highland & Agricultural Society of Scotland (RHASS) claimed it had delivered over £65 million in economic benefit to the UK.

RHASS chairman Jimmy Warnock described the show as a “once in a year opportunity” to get face to face with the countryside.

“The feedback on this year’s show has been incredible – yes the weather played its part but overwhelmingly visitors are amazed with the scale and size of the event, with every part of the showground brimming with things to see and do for the whole family,” he said.

“We hope we will leave a legacy for families to go out and discover what rural Scotland has to offer beyond the last four days of the show.”

More than 6,000 children visited the RHASS educational arm, the Royal Highland Education Trust, and an estimated 30,000 youngsters are thought to have attended over the four days, with children 15 and under admitted free.

Show manager David Jackson added that this year’s event had helped to secure the show’s reputation as being fully family friendly.

He said that this had been done with the help and assistance of members, competitors, breed societies and all the others who had worked to ensure that celebrations associated with the event were kept to sensible levels.

He added: “And there is now a great pride out there among these groups that the show is among the friendliest in the country.”

Getting to and from the show can be fraught with delays, but RHASS chief executive Alan Laidlaw said there had been an estimated 160,000 journeys made by public transport over the four days, double the previous year. He said a carefully coordinated approach had helped ensure that onward journeys from all the nearest train stations ran smoothly and without delays.

Meanwhile the Scottish Association of Young Farmer Clubs announced that Andrew Neilson from Avondale YFC was the winner of the hotly contested inaugural Young Farmer of the Year award. Six finalists, including Bankfoot JAC member David Comrie, competed in the final stages of the competition.

The “Butchery and Beyond” schools competition to create a new street food dish was won by Our Lady’s Royal Catholic High School.

This initiative was designed to introduce schoolchildren to cooking with Scotch beef, Scotch lamb or specially selected pork products.

nnicolson@thecourier.co.uk

Pictures: Ron Stephen. Veteran Highland Show exhibitor Liz Lang strides out with her Shorthorn Calves in the grand livestock parade at the show.

Picture: Alan Richardson. Top: The well matched team of Limousins in the cattle team interbreed competition; above: Hamish the Scotch Beef mascot aka ambassador Alexander Ulrichsen cools off.