Following the installation of a new triple chair last season, Glenshee ski area in Scotland has put in planning permission to add a fixed-grip quad chairlift.
The new lift, which would be Scotland’s second, joining the existing fixed-grip quad at Nevis Range installed more than 25 years ago, would replace the Cairnwell T-bar.
Glenshee’s management say the quad chair, which would have a capacity of 1,500 passengers an hour, would be faster and more comfortable to use than the T-bar and would make the slopes more accessible to disabled skiers.
It also says that, as the Cairnwell T-bar is one of its most popular lifts because of the terrain it accesses, there are often queues at peak times, which the new chairlift would accommodate more quickly, having more than double the hourly uplift capacity of the current T-bar.
Most of the ski lifts in Scotland are elderly draglifts dating from the 1960s and 1970s. Although there are about half a dozen chairlifts across the five centres, plus the funicular at Cairngorm and gondola at the Nevis range, most of the chairlifts were bought second-hand.