The New Year will bring a new £1.45 million visitor centre to the award-winning Helix Park between Falkirk and Grangemouth.
Construction work will start in January next to the park’s star attraction, the Kelpies – the world’s largest equine sculptures.
The new visitor centre – boasting a restaurant, retail area, audio visual experience, toilets and visitor information – is expected to open late in the summer of 2015. It will be operated by Falkirk Community Trust on behalf of the project partners Falkirk Council and Scottish Canals.
The building is being funded by SCORE Environment – which distributes money raised from landfill tax – as well cash from the Scottish Government, Big Lottery, Falkirk Council and Scottish Canals.
The Council said securing full funding and programming difficulties had delayed work on the new building.
The council has now awarded a contract to a new firm - Maxi Construction of Livingston – to complete the building. The firm won the work after a competitive tender process. It is expected to start work on the visitor centre building around 12 January 2015.
Councillor Adrian Mahoney, Falkirk Council’s spokesperson for Culture, Leisure and Tourism, said: “It’s taken some time, but I’m pleased that plans for the new visitor centre at the Helix Park seem to be back on track.
“We had hoped to open the centre in the autumn of 2014, but that wasn’t possible – and we had to go back out to tender, delaying the process by many months.
“I’m glad that a new firm, Maxi Construction, is now ready to start work on site and I look forward to the centre opening to visitors later in 2015. It will provide welcome new facilities to the Helix Park to deal with the huge numbers of people visiting the site and seeing the awesome Kelpies.”
He added: “We’ve had a fantastic year for tourism in Falkirk district in 2014, and this will be a great addition to what’s on offer in the New Year.”
Councillor Mahoney praised the external funders for making the centre possible. “The initial plans were for a much more modest building. Thanks to the generous support of funders such as Score Environment, we were able to commission a much larger centre, boasting a restaurant with superb views of the Kelpies, and better visitor facilities. I’m sure the centre will be well worth a visit when it opens in 2015.”
Park bosses estimate that around 800,000 people have visited the Helix site since the international launch of the Kelpies in April 2014.
The new centre aims to make the site more attractive to visitors and will feature:
- a 104 seat restaurant;
- an audio-visual visitor experience;
- a visitor orientation area where visitors can be signposted to other attractions within the park;
- a small retail area; and
- fully accessible disabled parking adjacent to the centre.
It is hoped that the centre will be able to open for extended hours in the summer as well as being offered as an event venue to expand its commercial capabilities.
The building was designed by Broughty Ferry-based Nicol Russell Studios, following the company’s selection from an international design competition managed by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS).
The new centre will ‘merge’ into the landscape using a combination of grass mounds and landscaped roof planes to provide uninterrupted views of the Kelpies, with the main glass frontage and the building interior orientated to face the 30 metre high structures.
The 450 square metre building will be made from a steel frame along with timber and aluminium cladding with a green turfed roof.
Steve Dunlop, Chief Executive of Scottish Canals, said: “The Helix and The Kelpies have captured the imagination of the public worldwide and they're already an incredibly popular tourism destination. The new visitor centre will boost the tourism offering of the site, providing a high-quality café, events space, and interpretation that will tell the story of these majestic sculptures from idea to soaring, steel-clad reality.
“The addition of the visitor centre will mark the latest stage of the transformation of the Falkirk and Grangemouth area that began more than a decade ago with the creation of The Falkirk Wheel. These iconic projects are an enduring symbol of the renaissance of Scotland's canals and we’re sure they will continue to attract visitors to the area for many years to come.”
Planning for the £43m Helix project started more than a decade ago. It was borne out of an idea to create a local greenspace that connected and engaged communities between Falkirk and Grangemouth.
The plans were delivered with the help of £25 million of core funding from the Big Lottery Fund’s Living Landmarks programme.
The project has already delivered:
- a kilometre of new canal with towpaths, creating a safe new connection to Grangemouth;
- 27 kilometres of shared access, high quality pathways connecting 16 communities;
- a new lagoon in Helix Park;
- a new splash play area and Adventure Play Zone;
- a new Plaza Café;
- the Horsebox café and gift shop; and
- the development of a 16-mile cycle route connecting The Helix, The Kelpies, The Falkirk Wheel and Callendar House
The project has received major awards, including: Scotland’s top civil engineering award, The Saltire Award; The National Structural Steel Award; a UK Green Apple Award; The National Lottery Best Environmental Project Award; and The National Lottery “National Treasure” Award.
The Helix site is open throughout the year and managed by Falkirk Community Trust, with tours allowing visitors to go inside the massive Kelpies. To find out more visit www.thehelix.co.uk