23 minutes ago
image description,
Eve Muirhead is one of the many champions to emerge from the Perth rink
The closure of Perth's Dewars Center ice rink would threaten Scotland and Britain's place at the top of the world in curling, politicians have warned.
Perth and Kinross Council wants to close Dewars and two other sports facilities and create a new center without a rink.
Scottish Curling chief executive Vincent Bryson hopes to persuade them to reconsider the plan next week.
“We are against the closure of any ice rink,” he told ` Scotland.
“Perth and the Dewar Center in particular are hugely popular across sport. There are plenty of gold medals at the Olympic and international level.”
“If we don’t have enough places for people to participate and be seen and identified as future talent and future champions, we would eventually lose our significant place on the world stage.”
Eve Muirhead has also described the proposal to close what she calls the “home of curling in Scotland” as a “shock” and highlighted the role the proposal played in her path to world and Olympic gold.
The council says Dewars is primarily used for curling and indoor bowling, which accounts for just 3% of sporting activity in Perth.
The closure, along with Perth Leisure Pool and Bell's Sports Centre, would allow costs to be cut by creating a center with a new swimming pool, gym, sports hall, studios and family play activities.
Bryson added: “Curling is not the only sport that uses rinks, but we are seeing a pattern where they are not seen as a priority by investors and the government.”
“If we lost Dewars we would only have 20 rinks, which would be a record low for the country, and we would ask others to carry that burden.”
“We would lose around 1,000 curlers if we lost Dewars – 500 were negatively impacted by the closure of Ayr – and that is difficult for any sport to sustain. Ultimately that would translate into the top level of the sport.”
Comments are closed.