21 June 2007

Gardyne’s Land - reception

Photo opportunity: 6.30 pm, Friday June 22nd
Gardyne’s Land, High Street, Dundee

Tayside Building Preservation Trust will hold a celebratory reception on Friday June 22nd in Gardyne’s Land, an important complex of historic buildings in Dundee city centre which has been converted to a backpacking hostel.

The buildings are due to open in early July. The project was put together by Tayside Building Preservation Trust who carried out the initial feasibility study in 1996. Work then had to be done assembling the site, raising the necessary finance and commissioning the plans for the building’s restoration and conversion to a modern backpacking hostel, a facility the City has been without for some considerable period of time.

Dundee City Council, who had been supportive of the Trust’s work throughout, were key in bringing the project to completion over the past three years. The project was supported from all sectors of the Dundee community through local charities, businesses and other organisations to members of the public.

Neil Grieve is chief executive of the Trust and a lecturer in Town and Regional Planning at Dundee University. He said the project represented a superb example of the growing relationship between Town and Gown.

"Contrary to recent reports the Planning School at Dundee is still in business and is delighted to be associated with a project that is an excellent illustration of what good planning can achieve," said Mr Grieve.

"The level of support from the council is indicative of the importance of the scheme to the City, not just because it secures the future of one of its most important buildings but also in terms of the economic benefits it will bring. Currently, Dundee is the only major city without a youth hostel."

"Once complete, Gardyne’s will have a minimum of ninety beds and should achieve a five star rating making it the only hostel to achieve this, the highest level of award in any city in Scotland. Once open, the hostel will have a high level of public access and interpretation facilities including a resource room which will be available to members of the public."

Gardyne’s Land is a generic name for a complex of five historic buildings the earliest of which can be traced back to 1560 and its first owner, a merchant named John Gardyne. The transformation of what was, until the Trust took them over, a largely empty and declining complex, part of which was at considerable risk, has been remarkable. To mark what has been achieved the Trust, a charity which exists to save buildings at risk in Tayside, is holding a reception on Friday evening in Gardyne’s to thank all who have supported them and to demonstrate that the Trust, after the marathon that was Gardyne’s is still in existence and will be taking on further projects. The evening is being sponsored by W H Brown Construction (Dundee) Ltd who was the main contractor for the project.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk