The Mountain Bike Innovation Centre will support Scottish, UK and international companies to develop innovative products and services and train and test athletes within the mountain biking and wider cycling sector.

The Mountain Bike Innovation Centre will be funded by a £19million investment from the UK Government as part of the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal, including £4million to be allocated towards the Tweed Valley Bike Park and Trail Lab.

This funding is available, subject to the Full Business Case being completed and approved. 

The Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal was signed in March 2021.

The £350million investment in the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal, from the UK and Scottish Governments, is made up of £150million for Scotland (£85million from the Scottish Government and £65million from the UK Government) and up to £200million for England from the UK Government. This will be supported by over £100million of funding from local partners.

The Mountain Bike Innovation Centre is expected to secure the Borderlands funding in 2025, subject to the Full Business Case being completed and approved.

Any later than this will risk the funding. Once the funding is secured, the project must spend the funds by the end of March 2031. 

There will be a series of benefits for the Scottish Borders.

These include a predicted £138million contribution into the local economy and creation of over 400 jobs in the region over a ten year period.

The required construction approach would increase the costs of the project significantly above the available budget, to approximately £30million. Savings have been identified but this would still leave the project significantly over budget.

It is estimated a new build Innovation Centre will cost around half the approximate £30million renovation cost, if built on the same site and to the same specifications.

SOSE is currently considering alternative sites, with active negotiations taking place.  All are within the Innerleithen area. We cannot provide any more details at this time due to commercial confidentiality.

It was only once the site was purchased, and thorough and intrusive building investigations were carried out, that SOSE was able to find out the full extent of the structural issues. 

SOSE has so far spent £2.3million to:

• Purchase the site
• Intrusive early construction works which discovered the structural issues with the building, decontaminated the site and made it safe. Most of these works were required regardless of how the site is taken forward.
• Legal costs
•  Achieving planning permission, listed building consent and building warrant
• Ongoing costs such as insurance  to keep the site safe

Borderlands funding will only be available subject to the Full Business Case being completed and approved, so has not yet been used.

SOSE have employed a specialist to temporarily prop the building to ensure it is safe . The building is subject to weekly site safety inspections and engineer inspections every two months.

The early works carried out by main contractor Morrison Construction between December 2023 to May 2024 managed to successfully decontaminate the site and made it safe.

Most of these works were required, regardless of how the site is taken forward.

Actions included:

• Large amounts of asbestos found and fully removed
• The main building being fully secured 
• Limited demolitions and wider site clearance of materials and waste left over 
• Over 100 test pits dug and monitored to identify the structure of foundations, soil conditions and for wider contaminants 
• Every piece of timber within the building investigated 
• Rain water pipes reinstated and roof repaired to prevent ongoing deterioration 

No final decision has been made, as we continue to look at options for the Caerlee Mill site.

The next public engagement event regarding Caerlee Mill will take place later in 2024, which will allow time to incorporate feedback to move forward with the Caerlee Mill site.

We recognise Caerlee Mill site is a hugely important town centre location.

This is why we remain dedicated to finding a positive solution for the site and we are committed to working with the local community and partners to find this solution.

Plans for the Bike Park are being developed by a commercial partner so we cannot comment on their behalf at this stage. 

However, SOSE has earmarked £4million of grant funding towards the private sector Bike Park operator.