http://www.peeblesshirenews.com/articles/1/38559

Old news, the plans haven’t involved the existing house for quite some time.

BBC thought it was worth reporting today too:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/8002763.stm

FCS waste public funds yet again, pay top dollar for a developed site then knock it down after spending more money discovering the building was not fit for purpose. They should be disbanded as a public body!!!

so the biggest single investment in a trail centre in the UK going tits up isn’t of interest?

all must be well then…

Parts of the application, which will see a new bike shop and cafe built on land near Jufrake House, will still go ahead with a viewing centre incorporated into them.

Doesn’t really sounds like it’s going “tits up” though. Change of plans yes and maybe a bit of money wasted but still the same outcome hopefully.

Emma makes a good point in the first article though.

I met Emma last year – she seems to have her head screwed on and have an eye on the business of mountain biking and developing the potential of the area as well as just riding / tunning training courses.

Naw, not credible. There’s far more to this than meets the eye

From the FES Management Board minutes 11th September 2007:

5. BUSINESS CASE: GLENTRESS PEEL
Alan Stevenson and Laurie Tyson made a presentation to the Board recommending
approval of the business case and approval in principle to the funding provisions. The
Board gave their approval. The business case will now be presented to Forestry
Commission Scotland management board at their meeting on 12 September.

And from the FCS Management Board minutes – one day later:

3. Exempt from publication, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Action
2000, Part 2, Section 43 – ‘Commercial interests’.

This neat little ploy of batting major decisions across the two Boards usefully avoids proper scrutiny / anyone finding out what’s really going on. The MSP in the article will now have to resort to an FOI request or more likely a Parliamentary Question to try to get to the bottom of this. As experience elsewhere has shown, PQ’s can be batted away with some skilful Ministerial support / intervention and the FOI process can take anything up to two years. Waste of time basically…

At the FES Management Board meeting 22nd Ocotober 2008:

9. AOB
Glentress: Alan Stevenson distributed papers and plans outlining 4 options for Jufrake House. After discussion the Board opted for Option 3 – New build 2 storey building to accommodate the recreation staff and additional FCE/FD needs. This building will be an open plan BREEAM excellent structure to accommodate all FC staff requirements in the Peebles area. An additional capital provision of £500k will be required in 10/11.

I think the story goes something like this:

• FES/ FCS purchase a big house and 12 acres of land for £850k. They also spend undisclosed amounts ‘buying out’ other private dwellings in order to ‘secure the site’
• Spending the thick end of £1m on a house then knocking it down was almost certainly a no brainer architecturally but that looks bad. So, they commission the architect to come up with various schemes one of which shows a conversion using the same footprint, the same 1.5 level roofline which makes planning easy and a wee viewing platform. That’s the one they punt into the public domain
• Whilst the ‘planning’ for all this is ongoing they are supposed to be developing a strategy for mtb on the whole of the forest estate. Other areas, notably Central Scotland, are clamoring for development but these are being ‘managed’ by a series of feasibility studies (aka control measures) which are making plenty of recommendations but basically going absolutely nowhere fast.

Bottom line here is these two Boards are taking the taxpayer and the democratic process for a proverbial ride. It is completely unacceptable they can take multi million pound decisions on Glentress like this whilst simultaneously driving other major projects ( where they don’t have total control) around in circles.

Even The Hub are questioning why all this was necessary in the first place and personally, I find the notion of Scotland’s largest landowner forking out £millions on private dwellings more than a little perverse. Where is the feasibility / strategic evidence to show this was justified?