Job fears as Scouts review future of Edinburgh's Bonaly outdoor centre and campsite

Covid means sites have been shut for months with no income

Generations of young people have been to the Bonaly centre

JOBS are feared to be at risk as the Scouts consider the future of their popular activity centre and campsite at Bonaly.

An official review is under way into the operation of the 24-acre site at the foot of the Pentlands where generations of young people have been to stay in tents and enjoy the outdoors.

A statement from the Scouts' South East Scotland region said a team was considering the options available to keep Bonaly operational in the short term but also trying to produce a longer term plan.

It added: "As it will impact on the staff and volunteers at Bonaly, we are now entering a period of consultation with them. Until this is completed we are unable to share the details of the plan but hope to be able to do so next month.

"The plan that has been created aims to ensure that Bonaly remains an exciting place for young people and leaders to visit and to undertake their Scout-focused outdoor programme going forward, continuing to provide the opportunities for fun and adventure that many members have experienced during visits to the centre over the years."

It is understood the plan may include a bigger role for volunteers in running the centre in order to keep it open.

In June Scouts chief executive Katie Docherty told the Evening News the organisation was trying to retain its outdoor centres but expected Covid would mean it had to make nearly half the staff at their headquarters and outdoor centres redundant in a restructuring exercise.

Today she said: "We are six months in with no income and no knowledge of when we can reopen. There's no guidance and we're not in any of the plans.

"The government is fed up of us writing to them. They just keep telling us to get a loan. But we're a charity with no income, we can't do that.

"On the positive side, face-to-face Scouting is beginning to resume. We're now allowed to do outdoor activities with a maximum of 12 children, so that's starting to happen across the country and young people are getting to see their friends."

One Scout centre, Fordell Firs in Dunfermline, has reopened for daytime activities - but only up to 30 youngsters can attend, compared with the hundreds who would normally be there to camp.

"It's incredibly minimal," said Ms Docherty. "In the summer holidays we would normally have hundreds of people camping there week in week out and we usually run a school holiday club with 100 kids a day. At the moment we have sporadic days with 20 or 30 kids coming in for a few hours at a time.

"Our other centres, there's nothing we can do with them because they are rural and require people to stay overnight, so they are completely non-operational."

In May, operators of all the outdoor centres in Scotland made a joint appeal to the Scottish Government for £7 million to keep all 37 centres open, but they were told they would not receive the cash.

Girlguiding Scotland announced this week it was closing its outdoor activity centre at Netherurd in the Borders. It said financial pressures exacerbated by coronavirus meant it was no longer viable to continue operating the site near West Linton. Most of the staff are to be made redundant.