New £1m international Highland games centre plan announced

A new £1 million international Highland games centre has been announced for Perthshire as part of a massive investment in Tayside.

The new, purpose-built, Crieff International Highland Centre will be the first of its kind in Scotland and will be a world base for Highland sports, dance and music, as well as offering a permanent home for the Scottish Highland Games Association.

The funding is part of a new £3 million investment in the Tay Cities Deal by the UK Government, which will also see £1.6 million given to Aero Space Kinross, £300,000 to a Stretch Dome Simulator at St Andrews University and £100,000 for tiny Innerpeffray Library to fund a nature walk and upgrade its education and visitor facilities.

Anna Mclean, chairwoman of Crieff Highland Games, said plans for the new centre are still in their early stages but it will be the first of its size and scope

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We’re still trying to absorb it. It’s fantastic news.

ANNA MCLEAN

in Scotland. Organisers hope to build the new centre at Market Park in the Perthshire town – the home of Crieff Highland Gathering.

Ms Mclean said: “We’re still trying to absorb it. It’s fantastic news for Crieff Highland Gathering and for Crieff itself.

“Our vision is a centre for highland sports, dance and music as well as providing facilities to link in with local community groups.”

The chairwoman explained feasibility studies and focus groups with the local community still had to be carried out but that they were hoping to begin the project “quite quickly”.

The first phase will see a purpose-built centre developed with the possibility of adding outdoor training facilities later on.

Alisdair Stewart, chairman of Aero Space Scientific Education Trust (Asset), said he was grateful to all who had helped the Kinross-shire project reach this “key milestone”.