New business development ‘Gather’ sees Laggan Outdoor Activity Centre, Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway announce closure in November 2020.
A new hilltop, glass fronted restaurant with luxury outdoor seating, stunning sea views and capacity for 70 diners will open this Summer at Laggan Outdoor near Gatehouse of Fleet.
Owners of Laggan Outdoor, Duncan and Vicki McConchie, are developing a luxury dining experience for both locals and visitors to enjoy, as well as residents staying to attend events at premier wedding and conference venue GG’s Yard.
Laggan Outdoor Activity Centre, in operation since June 2007, will open its doors for the last time on 1st November 2020.
In a video released on the company’s Facebook page, owners of Laggan Activity Centre, Duncan & Vicki McConchie’s three young sons are filmed talking about the development of their family’s land. With a montage of video from the centre’s activities the boys talk about challenges of seasonality and the pressures on traffic numbers, as some of the key reasons contributing to the decision to close.
Laggan Activity Centre has welcomed up to 20,000 visitors a year, launched Europe’s longest Zip wire in 2012, The World’s Largest Human Slingshot in 2015 and was crowned Scotland’s Best Outdoor Adventure Experience in the 2017 Scottish Thistle Awards.
In recent years Laggan Outdoor have diversified their customer experience from operating solely as an outdoor adventure activity centre to offer boutique accommodation and a luxury wedding and conference venue, GG’s Yard which has capacity for 300 guests.
As a natural progression to their business development, this Summer the company will open a brand new, glass fronted restaurant – Gather – offering a great ‘foodie’ experience using fresh, locally sourced produce. With its stunning sea views and glorious sunsets, the new eaterie is expected to appeal to both locals and visitors from the UK and beyond.
Laggan Outdoor Activity Centre employ three full time and 14 part time staff and where possible staff will be offered alternative opportunities within the company. The company plan to go out with a bang on the November 1st, 2020, the closing day, and more details of this will be released soon.
Duncan McConchie, owner of Laggan Outdoor Activity Centre, said;
“It’s never an easy decision to close something that you started and grew over the last 13 years and had some incredible successes with. Laggan Outdoor has enabled the growth of new business which isn’t affected as much by seasonality and has a much more foreseeable income stream.
“Further investment into the Outdoor Centre made less sense as substantial growth in that, would have led us to costly road upgrades. Instead, we’ll focus on other areas of the business such as ‘Gather’, which will offer diners a great foodie experience 7 days and 3 nights a week and the most enviable seaviews and we’re really looking forward to the new opportunities for everyone with this.
“We’d like to thank all of our customers who have come to Laggan Outdoor Activity Centre over the years and our great staff team. As our video says, this isn’t the end it will be the start of a new beginning as we look to new possibilities that can be grown on this land.”
