Parents from across Scotland have launched a desperate bid to save the country’s leading riding centre for the disabled.
A major fundraising drive has been launched to secure a future for the Bannockburn Riding for the Disabled Association facility near Stirling.
For two decades, from facilities leased on the 700-acre Sauchieburn Estate, it has been a centre of excellence, hosting national championships and training riders for the Paralympics.
Until recently it provided therapy for more than 200 disabled adults and children every week, attracting users from across Courier Country and further afield.
Now, however, a long-standing row involving the group and their landlord over repairs to an access road has placed its future at risk.
It has deteriorated to the extent that users can no longer gain access to the centre, with the number of riders those capable of walking up to a mile to lessons and others whose parents have come together to share 4×4 transport dropping to just 20.
That has had a catastrophic impact upon the centre’s income and the charity fears that it may now have just a few weeks left.
While there are a number of other RDA groups across Scotland, the disabilities battled by many riders mean that their ability to ride is determined by their work with just one horse a relationship that would be lost in the event of closure.
Among those likely to suffer would be 16-year-old cerebral palsy sufferer Gemma Lumsdaine, a pupil at the New School Butterstone, by Dunkeld.
Gemma, from Monifieth, has been riding since the age of three and turned to the centre in the hope that the training available would help take her to the next level.
Three years later, she has made great progress but her hopes of success at a national level, and dreams of representing her country at a Paralympic Games, could now be destroyed.
“We travel the miles to the centre every week because quite simply it is the best RDA in Scotland,” mum Sally said.
In a bid to avert that doomsday scenario, the charity has launched the “RideOn” fund to give it the time to find a solution, support legal action or even help it relocate to alternative premises.
It is appealing to supporters to spread the word on Facebook and Twitter and inspire donations to its fund and is organising a string of events to raise money.
Funds can be sent to Bannockburn RDA, Sauchieburn Centre, Sauchie Estate, Stirling, FK7 9PZ; pledged at www.justgiving.com/BannockburnRDA-RideOn.
Estate owner Bill Roddie did not respond to our inquiries.