YHAgroup.org.uk

The Guardian have just published a list of 10 of the best budget stays in the Yorkshire Moors and Dales. No fewer than four of them are YHA hostels! So, take a bow…

• YHA Grinton Lodge
• YHA Hawes
• YHA Lockton
• YHA Boggle Hole

Reports in both the Press and Journal and the Northern Times reveal that Carbisdale Castle YH will remain closed for the whole of this season.

The hostel was severely damaged last winter and closed “for at least three months”, but the work done to fix the original problem only uncovered more. According to SYHA:

As the building has been stripped for reinstatement repairs, further extensive structural and fabric damage has been uncovered. The works required to address this additional damage have become increasingly complicated and serious. While SYHA resources are not limitless, we are endeavouring to do all we can.

While SYHA scramble to find the money for all the necessary work (could this be why they’re selling hostels?) the hostel will remain closed. This will come as a severe blow both to the local economy in Sutherland, and to SYHA’s own coffers – Carbisdale was considered the “jewel in the crown” of their hostels, attracting 20,000 visitors each year. Let’s hope they’re able to polish it up again for next year.

It’s been just over a year since I shared some photos of Losehill Hall, then about to begin its transformation into the new Castleton youth hostel.

Well, that transformation is now complete, and the hostel has been open for business for some weeks. I was up there last weekend to attend this year’s Affiliated Groups’ Conference (of which I’ll write more later), so here’s a chance for another virtual walk round:

According to a story in the Southern Reporter on Sunday, two of the three hostels scheduled for closure in the Scottish borders have now gone on the open market.

The hostels at Melrose and Kirk Yetholm are now for sale with asking prices of £850,000 and £130,000 respectively. The news came as a surprise both to the newly-formed Friends of Melrose YH group and to an unnamed operator interested in taking on Kirk Yetholm, neither of whom were told that the sale boards were about to go up.

On a brighter note, Broadmeadows YH is to stay open for another season to see if opening for a longer period can make it a viable proposition. The hostel will now open in mid-May rather than in June – though they’ve left it so late to make that decision that one wonders if it’ll make much difference. My own local group would like to have gone there in May, but when booking were told it was closed and we’ve had to go in July instead. Does anybody book trips to Scotland at such short notice?

In fact, even now, the opening season at Broadmeadows seems a little odd, assuming they want to attract custom from South of the Border. Scotland – even the borders – is a long way away, so people are likely to make use of Bank Holidays to stay longer and make the trip worthwhile. There’s usually a bank holiday in April and two in May, which have the added advantage of being before the worst of the midge season. Yet even under the new plan, Broadmeadows is only open for the last of these holidays, and in a year when there isn’t going to be one!

On a still brighter note, SYHA Chief Executive Keith Legge revealed “we are currently exploring longer-term options for opening a new youth hostel in the Borders, resources permitting.” Whether this means anything in practice remains to be seen – here in England and Wales we’re constantly exploring options for opening hostels in places we’d like to be, but the “resources permitting” bit sadly tends to stand in the way of them actually appearing.

Let’s hope that doesn’t turn out to be the case in this instance.

Members of the Board assembled in Ambleside two weeks ago for our second meeting of 2012.

Those of us lucky enough to get up there on Friday afternoon were taken on a whistle-stop tour of five of our Lake District hostels: Hawkshead, Coniston Coppermines, Coniston Holly How, Langdale and Grasmere. It was great to see the managers and staff at each place so enthusiastic about their hostels, and doing everything they can to make our customers’ experiences as good as possible.

Sharp eyed readers may wonder why we bothered to go to Hawkshead when it’s been on the closure list since last year. The answer is that its future is being reconsidered. The team at Hawkshead, and in the Lakes area, having been looking again at how the numbers stack up, and whether we can make Hawkshead work. The answer is a possible “yes”. By clearing an overgrown area of the hostel’s extensive grounds, we’ll have space to add some camping, both conventional and in “pods”. Add this to the schools business in the main hostel building and we may have a viable proposition after all.

This isn’t (yet) a reprieve for Hawkshead, but it is a stay of execution. Either way, it’ll be open for the whole of this season, so you have a little extra time to visit this lovely hostel.

On Friday night we had a presentation from MOSAIC about their work of introducing ethnic minorities to National Parks, and to youth hostelling. They had much to say on how we could better serve that part of the community. If you’re coming to the Groups’ Conference next week, you’ll have the chance to hear them for yourselves.

The actual Board meeting took place on Saturday, in the usual blazing sunshine. We looked at the provisional End-of-Year results for 2011/12, the usual mixed bag of good and bad, but it was gratifying to see a substantial rise in the number of overnights. Now we just have to make sure that the hostelling experience is so good, people want to come back. How hard can that be?

A lot of time – as ever – was given over to the Capital Strategy, deciding where to invest and where to draw back. I’m afraid I can’t say much about it here yet. What I will say is that I think the days of us announcing the closure of eight or more hostels at once are done with. All the decisions ahead of us are much more finely balanced – there will be further hostel closures, but they’ll probably trickle out one by one as each case is examined from every angle.

Does this represent a change of heart or policy? No. It’s just that it was clear and easy to identify hostels like Saffron Walden that never had a hope of covering the massive cost of bringing it up to standard. Having weeded those out, we’re on to more finely balanced cases – like Hawkshead – where it takes longer to make an informed decision. The board and the executive take their duty to make these decisions very seriously.

The afternoon was given over to a variety of matters – notably the early arrangements for this year’s YHA AGM, and the ongoing reform of YHA governance. It looks like we’re moving towards an “electoral college” system at the AGM, where there’ll be more places available for ordinary YHA members as opposed to member of Regional Councils. I hope this helps open up the workings of the Association to more public view.

At the end of the meeting we dispersed to all directions. Some taking cars or trains back home, others taking the chance to extend their stay in Lakeland. I was one of the lucky ones – taking a photogenic break at Coniston Holly How and then at Langdale. The weather was incredible – there must have been a YHA committee meeting somewhere nearby…

It is with sadness that I report the passing away last week of Barbara Smith, a former vice-chairman of the YHA and a tireless worker for the Association in a variety of guises.

Barbara had struggled with ill health in the last couple of years, but seemed to be on the mend recently, attending Regional Council meetings and working with volunteer wardens. When I last met her a month ago, she was planning to attend the forthcoming Affiliated Groups’ Meeting as an observer, just to keep informed on that element of YHA activity. The sudden turn for the worst last Friday was entirely unexpected.

Barbara’s funeral will take place in Dewsbury tomorrow. Her husband has requested now flowers be sent, but donations to the RNLI instead.

A community group has sprung up to attempt to save Melrose Youth Hostel, one of the five listed for closure last year. A similar attempt was made to save nearby Coldingham hostel back in 2008, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. Let’s hope the inhabitants of Melrose have better luck.

You can find out about and follow the campaign on their new web site.

The SYHA have announced the addition of three new hostels to their network. The three hostels are:

• Hillview House, Inverness
• Lagganlia YH (between Kingussie and Aviemore)
• Campbeltown Bunkhouse

All three are affiliate operations, owned and run privately, but (now) operating as part of the SYHA network. We have these south of the border too, where they’re called “enterprise hostels”. Hopefully the new arrivals will compensate a little for the five closures announced last year.

Two out of the three are fairly close to existing SYHA operations, but Cambeltown will open up the Mull of Kintyre to SYHA members. A chance to see what Paul McCartney was going on about!

It’s been one heck of a long time in coming, but the redesigned YHA website finally went live yesterday afternoon.

It’s been a long and bumpy ride to get us to this point, over a year after the site was supposed to appear as the centrepiece of last year’s rebranding exercise. The delay was caused by the complexity of the new site’s operations, which integrates hostel bookings with the membership database, and difficulties in getting such a complex process to perform at an acceptable speed. Quite rightly, the site was not released until we could be confident that it would work properly – but I don’t think anyone expected it to take this long.

As I did last time, I’ll publish a full review of the site once I’ve had some time to fully explore it, but first impressions are of a massive improvement. Take a look for yourselves and see what you think.

SYHA issued a press release yesterday announcing the closure of five of its hostels. The news was picked up by the BBC, but does not seem to have made much impression elsewhere yet – including the SYHA’s own website.

Here is the news release in full:

SYHA Hostelling Scotland announces changes to its network

SYHA Hostelling Scotland, Scotland’s largest network of Youth Hostels, has announced its intention to enhance the future performance and long-term sustainability of its network of 46 Youth Hostels.

It will achieve this by closing five of its existing Youth Hostels to make improvements necessary to meet rising customer expectations and to compete with recent increases in the quality and quantity of other low budget accommodation.

The decision was reached as part of SYHA’s ongoing annual review process and the Youth Hostels earmarked for closure are located in Arden, Broadmeadows, Canisbay, Kirk Yetholm and Melrose. It is anticipated that the recommendations and other structural changes will be implemented in stages from February 2012 onwards.

These particular locations have been selected as they are failing to attract a viable number of guests. In addition, where they are in a poor state of repair insufficient funds exist to refurbish them in a sustainable way.

Keith Legge, Chief Executive of SYHA Hostelling Scotland said: “While it is always sad to close some iconic and long standing Youth Hostels, the reality is that SYHA has to make responsible decisions which support our charitable aims. As a not-for-profit, self-funding charitable organisation, we have a duty to make best use of scarce resources to ensure a sustainable future.”

SYHA believes in the importance of enabling young people in particular to learn about Scotland’s culture and natural heritage whilst improving their health and wellbeing by encouraging them to be active and spend time outdoors.

In line with this ethos, the organisation aims to ensure that sufficient investment is available to provide accommodation and other services that facilitate the ongoing commitment to its youth development programmes. This investment is also important in meeting the needs and expectations of today’s budget travellers in an ever increasingly competitive market.

Keith said: “As a result of listening to our guests’ feedback about their experiences, requirements and expectations, we are striving to have a more sustainable, modern and fit for purpose hostelling network for the future of like-minded budget travellers from within and to Scotland.”

In the meantime SYHA is continuing with its upgrade programme to meet market trends in guest expectations for high quality, affordable accommodation, as seen recently in Lochranza, Oban and Glenbrittle.

Keith added: “SYHA aims to offer guests the best possible facilities at an affordable budget cost. Our ongoing review has resulted in many of our properties being refurbished and upgraded to provide smaller rooms, some with en-suite facilities to suit couples, families and smaller groups along with the traditional overnight and larger group accommodation and services provision.”

It sounds like the Scots are adopting a very similar policy to that being followed south of the border – closing and selling hostels to invest in the remainder of the network. I’m sure it will be just as controversial up there.

Of course, with a much smaller network to begin with, the effects of each closure will be more keenly felt. This won’t be helped by the fact that three of the five hostels are in the same area – by closing Broadmeadows, Melrose and Kirk Yetholm, SYHA have wiped out their entire offering in the borders region.

I stayed at two of them during a recent walk along the St Cuthbert’s Way. Melrose is a “big Victorian house” hostel – a type that can be difficult (and expensive) to adapt to 21st century tastes, so I’m not wholly surprised to see it on the list. Kirk Yetholm is a smaller, cosier spot – and of course it’s at the end (or the beginning) of the Pennine Way. I’m surprised they can’t keep it going.

Readers will remember that, not so long ago, a batch of YHA closures looked sure to clear almost all the hostels from the southern side of that border. What actually happened is that a mix of enterprise scheme takeovers, partnerships with locals, and even a couple of new hostels have left the North Pennines as (deservedly) one of YHA’s most thriving areas.

So, given the resourcefulness of border folk, maybe there’s more to hear from this story. I certainly hope so!

STOP PRESS: A statement about the closures has now been made on the SYHA site. There’s also been coverage in the John O’Groat Journal and the Southern Reporter.