The Wildcat Centre on Main Street is to shut on September 30 after two of the Highland’s biggest funders chose to stop providing much-needed cash used to keep the facility up and running.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Scottish Natural Heritage have both provided funding to the centre for the past two years, but the two organisations have told centre bosses that their application is not being renewed for a third year.

Volunteers have since been working for free to keep the information point open throughout the summer months.

But leading members of the Newtonmore Community Woodland and Development Trust (NCWDT), the organisation behind the centre, announced on Monday that the centre was to finally cease trading.

It first opened its doors to the public in April, 2000, after being set up by the community group’s board of trustees to provide information for visitors wishing to use the Wildcat Trail – the seven-mile orbital path running around the Badenoch village.

The centre also promoted walking as a popular outdoor pursuit and encouraged members of the public to take to the hills and paths found elsewhere in the strath and across Scotland.

During the first four years the facility employed a rota-system of up to 30 volunteers who took it in turns to work shifts at the centre free of charge, with costs incurred in running the place covered by the selling of Ordinance Survey maps and promotional materials highlighting the Wildcat Trail.

The number of volunteers subsequently dwindled, leaving the board of trustees no option but to seek funding from HIE and SNH to pay for a part-time worker to keep the site open for at least half a day, seven days a week.

Janet Davidson, the NCWDT’s company secretary, who had also helped to run the centre since its opening, was given the paying post with the remit of finding new ways to turn the centre into a self-funding organisation.

Over the last two years the trust has organised successful promotional events to raise the profile of the centre, but it was still reliant on the grant aid to keep the centre up and running.

HIE and SNH, however, decided to end their association with the scheme and new applications by the centre in recent months for support from the Cairngorms National Park Authority and lottery funding have been rejected.

Mrs Davidson said she was heartbroken to see the centre finish trading after more than six years of hard work.

“I am very disappointed that something which has been a great asset to the community and visitors to Newtonmore has had to close, really as a result of a lack of continued support from funding bodies, because it was providing a service that will now be gone from the village,” she said.

“At the time of establishing the centre we thought the Wildcat Trail needed some sort of information point telling people about the trail and walking, not only in the area but around Scotland, which would also be a useful thing for the village itself to have.

“The centre started with a rota of about 30 people helping out but the number gradually slipped away and by 2002 we started looking into the possibility of finding funding for a part-time worker.

“From July, 2004, I myself was employed by the trust as they felt I had been instrumental in setting up and running the centre for the previous four years.

“Unfortunately, the funding from SNH and HIE ended in June and we have been surviving entirely on volunteers ever since, with me doing the lion’s share of the work.”

Mrs Davidson added she felt the prospects of the centre returning to the village were slim.

“Unless a project is completely new, it is extremely difficult to get funding, so I can’t honestly see the Wildcat Centre reopening in its present format in the future,” she said.

“It seems to me that essentially if something doesn’t pay it doesn’t survive, but the Wildcat Centre was never set up with the view of becoming a profit-making organisation.

“All the volunteers are extremely upset at the closure as they know how well liked the centre is by the people who come in.”

John Russell, chairman of the charitable NCWDT, also expressed his sadness at seeing the end of the centre, but reiterated that work to maintain and promote the orbital path would continue despite the loss.

He said: “We are very disappointed that the bodies approached have been unable to find the funding which would allow us to continue providing this service for visitors.

“The Wildcat Centre meets so many of the organisation’s own criteria in terms of supporting tourism and economic development, promoting responsible access, and providing a resource for the local community.

“The work of the Newtonmore Community Woodland and Development Trust in maintaining the woodlands it manages and the Wildcat Trail, will continue.

“The centre has been very successful as a service to visitors, and thanks to it the trail is now a well-recognised attraction for walkers from all over the country.

“The board would like to publicly record its sincere thanks all those local residents who have volunteered in the centre over the period of its existence.”

Community leaders in Newtonmore also voiced their shock at hearing the tourist information point was to no longer be in service.

Dave Fallows, chairman of Newtonmore Community Council, said: “Obviously times are difficult for everyone in Newtonmore at present as is evident by the closure of the library and loss of other services around the village in recent months.

“But to hear that the Wildcat Centre should be closing as well is a great pity to say the least.

“The service offered was, and is, well used all-year round, but despite that it was always going to be difficult to make the Wildcat Centre a self-funding economic proposition because it was more of a service than a retail outlet, and therefore it was always going to be dependent on funding packages.”

Mr Fallows called for a change in the way organisations distribute their funding in the wake of the announcement.

He said: “That the funding of the centre has run out is typical of the malaise that effects everybody who is dependent on funding from public agencies.

“It is all done on a short-term basis and it is the whole funding process itself that leads to things being pulled, with the Wildcat Centre sadly being another example of this.

“No-one would suggest that funding agencies should be bottomless pits for money because that is never going to happen, but I think that from the outset there needs to be a much more long-term view taken where funding is granted with projects knowing how long it will last.

“This will help those like the Wildcat Centre that are not likely to become self-funding the chance to be given a longer lifeline.

“It is just such a pity to hear of the closure and it is credit to Janet Davidson for managing to struggle away and trying to make this work while there

hasn’t been any funding available over the last few months.”

The centre will continue to open in the morning between Monday and Saturday until it closes. It has also been the base for the traditional New Year’s Day walk of the Wildcat Trail.

But Newtonmore Village Hall is now set to be the venue for the coming New Year event to mark the start of 2007. The facility has in addition been home to the Millennium Book of Newtonmore since it was created to mark the start of the 21st century.

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