I’d be interested to know how many days per year these centres are actually used. I’m presuming it’s very few so it seems pretty logical to sell them off and instead rely on booking shared activity centres when they’re actually required
It’s not about days per year. Children go to school; you can’t expect them to be in use 24/7 during term time.
A single activity centre – let’s take Foxlease as an example, which was gifted to the Guide Association by Princess Mary in 1922 – can sleep 166 girls & leaders in indoor accommodation plus 140 camping assuming all pitches are at minimum capacity.
GirlGuiding UK’s London offices, which are opposite Buckingham Palace, sleep 30 and are functionally inaccessible to Guides in most of the country. Unlike the activity centres.
Perhaps if GirlGuiding hadn’t had to write off £2.8 million owed to them by a company they decided to let run a hotel out of their Location building, they wouldn’t be having to sell the family silver. And perhaps they should be selling the inaccessible London office, and not their campsites.
I was about to say how sad this was, and how facilities like this and Baden Powell House are so useful to the movement.
Then I checked BPH on Wikipedia, and found that it had already been sold a couple of years back!
