A community came together this week to discuss the potential impact of one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events.
The Ryder Cup will come to Gleneagles in 2014 and with it will come some of the world’s top golfers, thousands of spectators, media, police officers and volunteers.
While the eyes of the world will focus on the greens, the local area will face disruption and change, but will also have a unique opportunity to sell itself to nations around the world.
To hear about the latest plans for the event and how it will affect the community, local MPs, MSPs, councillors and community councillors gathered at the Aytoun Hall in Auchterarder.
They were joined by senior representatives from Ryder Cup Europe, the police and Perth and Kinross Council.
With some 45,000 visitors expected to attend each day of the six-day event in September next year, the organisers arranged the event to discuss the current staging proposals and to allow the community to help shape them.
Ryder Cup operations director Antonia Beggs said: “Although there will be many benefits to staging the 2014 Ryder Cup in Scotland, particularly for the Perthshire region, it is impossible to arrange an international event of this size and status without some degree of impact and inconvenience to the area.
“We were delighted that so many leading figures from the area took the opportunity to come along and feed into our plans to minimise disruption while the event takes place at Gleneagles.
“We want to ensure that the event delivers major benefits to the local economy, as well as the whole of Scotland.”
The meeting heard from event organisers who are anxious to ensure minimal disruption to normal routines for residents and businesses.
This includes managing local and through traffic routes that will be affected while the event takes place.
Those in attendance at the meeting heard that an event management plan and a transportation plan are being developed to accommodate this overriding aim. Perth and Kinross Council leader Ian Miller was among those who took part.
He said: “We are working hard in partnership with the police, transport organisations and Ryder Cup Europe to ensure that disruption is minimised and local residents are accommodated wherever possible.
“However, I think we all understand that some element of disruption is inevitable when dealing with an event of this scale.
“Hopefully the majority believe it is a price worth paying to be able to host one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events and to benefit from the longer-term publicity this will bring the area.”