Carnyorth Outdoor Education Centre being relaunched

Carnyorth Outdoor Education Centre is being relaunched so, if like me you were rather worried by the decline of the building, I hope that soon we will start seeing some improvements.

I met with the newly appointed manager, Paul Parkinson and his line managers. It is being relaunched as part of Cornwall Outdoors and over the next 12 months the programme and the building should be getting a makeover. It will offer a residential experience to enhance school curriculum’s with activities they cannot provide for themselves. It will also target youth organisations and look to develop its Duke of Edinburgh Awards programme. It can provide a residential experience and our landscape can offer the ideal environment for training or achievement of elements of the award. They would also like to see more teams training and entering Ten Tors, from Cornwall.

It was one of those great meetings with Officers where I, as the local elected member, could add local knowledge to their professional expertise and I hope we can become a partnership as things go forward.

It is also their ambition to engage with the local community. I’m sure, like me, those passing the Centre will be glad if the money can be found to improve the fabric of the building but I know that money in the Council is very tight. So, at some stage, we hope to hold an open day (probably in the autumn) and from that I hope very much we can have a Carnyorth DIY SOS type project to get the inside smartened up for young people to enjoy. The pay off for us, if we help the project team to make this financially viable, is that it will not be at risk of being sold off so reduce local anxiety over what it might become. So, watch this space!