Community group’s bid to keep tourist information centre

A community group is pressing ahead with plans to keep the tourist information centre in Blairgowrie open.

VisitScotland has said it will close its base in the town by March 2019, but members of the Blairgowrie and East Perthshire Tourist Association (Bepta) are optimistic they can keep the town centre premises going.

Bob Ellis, chairman of Bepta, revealed the site is actually owned by the community group and is currently rented by VisitScotland.

He said this put the town in a stronger position than others which are also slated to lose their visitor centres as part of a major overhaul by the national tourism authority.

“VisitScotland will be pulling out of the town by this time next year,” he said.

“However, Bepta is the only tourist association that owns its office – we own these premises, not VisitScotland who pay us rent for it, and we want to keep it open.”

He continued: “We have various things in the pipeline and have had a conversation with VisitScotland about how much it will cost to keep it open.

“We will be looking for funding for that and are hoping to have something sorted out by the end of the year. We have already spoken to people about staffing it and about leasing the shelves to local arts and crafts producers.

“At the present moment in time we are still in a bit of limbo but we aim to keep the information centre open.”

VisitScotland announced in October that it was closing 39 of its 65 centres to focus services on 26 “high impact regional hubs”.

The Dunkeld and Callander offices were also on the list. Pitlochry, Perth and Dundee will be home to regional hubs.

Tourism bosses said there had been a 58% drop in footfall at its centres over the past 12 years, with increasing numbers of visitors getting information online.