CUMBRAE National Watersports Centre will not reopen after lockdown, the News can reveal.

It is the end of an era for the 43-year-old facility after sportscotland announced which will now have a full summer programme cancelled before closure in September.

Barry Fleeting, who is principal of the watersports centre, told the News that no future course provision will now take place.

The watersports centre supported 12 jobs on the island, and while some decided to leave before lockdown, the remaining staff have all been deployed within sportscotland.

Mr Fleeting said: "All the courses on the books have been cancelled and I don't envisage that we will be delivering them again. Unfortunately due to running costs, it just was not viable to reopen the centre.

"The first thing we plan to do is to meet up with North Ayrshire Council and the community to discuss further how we deal with the sale of the land and a number of assets that can be considered for community transfer.

"There is the likes of gym equipment within the building which could go to a local enterprise - such as the Millport Town Hall project - and help improve the health and wellbeing of the population.

"We only had 30 odd members who used the health suite at Cumbrae Watersports Centre which was three miles out of town. These could be facilities in the centre of Millport at the heart of the community."

Sportscotland stated earlier this year that they had carried out a stringent consultation and had taken the time to make a 'considered and informed decision'.

The future provision of some of the educational courses for children currently offered by Cumbrae National Watersports Centre will now be run from Inverclyde National Sports Training Centre in Largs. Other training provision will be provided by the Royal Yachting Association Scotland.

A Save the Wave campaign was set up by the community to try and save the centre, which had gained support from West of Scotland list MSP Jamie Greene and double gold medallist Shirley Robertson, who told the News that the facility had played a 'pivotal' role in her sporting development.

Cllr Alex Gallagher, who is islands representative on North Ayrshire Council, said he was disappointed by the news but that 'it was not unexpected'.

He said: "We didn't think sportscotland would change their mind and we now need to look at how we can handle an asset transfer. These talks have been disrupted by the Covid-19 situation but that was one of the ideas we were investigating was finding another use for the accommodation.

"I would encourage sportscotland to get in touch with myself and council officers to take this forward with a bit of urgency as we need to start looking at the future of the site right now to find some kind of solution."