Scotland’s only indoor snow centre will not reopen and the building which housed it will be redeveloped into a “…new and thrilling attraction with a broad appeal,” the operators the larger XSite at Braehead near Glasgow have announced.
Known in recent years as Snow Factor, the indoor snow centre was originally developed by the group that at the time ran the Milton Keynes and Castleford indoor snow centres in England, currently known as Xscape. At the time the company running all three centres was headed by PY Gerbeau (pictured below in 2005), who had previously been involved in the creation of Disneyland Paris.
SnowFactor was however sold off to a separate operator several years ago, which then ran into financial difficulties before the pandemic which appear to have been exacerbated by the rapid rise of energy costs during the Ukraine war. The facility was closed late last year and administrators attempted to find an operator for the centre. It’s known that at least one American company did attempt to find a way forward, without success, and a group of local families also formed a group, Save XSite Snow Scotland, to try to save the centre.
“We confirm our campaign to save Scotland’s only indoor snow slope from permanent closure has been unsuccessful. Sadly the owners have taken the decision to look an alternative use for the venue. We would like to thank all of our supporters for their efforts with a special mention to Councillor Jamie McGuire. We hope it won’t be too long before Scotland sees another ‘the likes of it again,” a social media post from the Save XSite Snow Scotland group read.
Braehead Leisure Partnership, the owner of XSite, announced the permanent closure of the ski slope at Braehead, “on financial viability, safety, and environmental grounds,” the company said in a statement.
The statement explains that during the initial investigations, concerns were raised by HSE Scotland regarding the operation of the ski slope, leading to the appointment of the Glasgow office of Arup – a global engineering and sustainability consultancy – to provide advice to the building owner.
Extensive tests concluded that, due to the age and composition of the ski slope, it has been deemed unviable and it is necessary to remove all of the existing snow and ice as soon as possible. The statement says that this complicated work has required a lot of planning and will start in the late Autumn of 2023, taking around three months to complete.
The statement noted the centre also needed exceptionally high energy consumption required to maintain the snow within the ski slope. The energy consumed (on average 5,900 kwh per day) is equivalent to the electricity that 800 two-bedroom houses will consume in a day (based on Ofgem data). The cost of meeting this energy requirement has increased by 500% since 2021.
“The longer-term environmental impacts of a building consuming this much energy are also of considerable concern. For context, maintaining the temperature of the ski slope uses the same energy as over 6,000 fridge freezers per day (Ofgem) and produces over 500 tonnes of CO2e per annum using current Government figures,” Braehead Leisure Partnership’s statement concluded, adding,
“After exhaustive research and investigation, that the slope – given its age and poor condition, mapped against its commercial opportunity and the capital needed to put it in to serviceable shape – is rendered unviable.”
Matt Beddow, representing XSite Braehead said: “It has been a very difficult decision to make and the Braehead Leisure Partnership has concluded that the poor condition and age of the facility, combined with the dramatically increased running costs of this 17-year-old installation, make it unviable for us to support the slope as a commercial operation going forward. We must now focus on the future. We are working on options to reopen this amazing space as a new and thrilling attraction with a broad appeal. … I look forward to sharing more details in the coming weeks and of course we will keep XSite’s visitors, and the local community fully updated on this journey.”
Braehead’s closure follows that of a similar aged facility in Moscow, which had been the only centre open in Russia and is being demolished after a long list of health and safety issues were identified in the structure.
