On Tuesday 3rd October it was confirmed that the former SnowFactor indoor snow slope at Braehead's Xsite facility has closed permanently.
See [
www.bbc.co.uk] .
The snow slope has been mothballed but maintained since SnowFactor was evicted by court order on 16th November 2022 having entered liquidation on 7th November.
[
www.bbc.co.uk] .
One point in the statement that Xsite made that appears to be an attempt at greenwashing their decision is that it is in part due to environmental concerns due to the electricity usage of the facility which can consume up to 5900kwh per day which from HM Govt figures would result in 500tonnes of CO2 per year.
A statement released by the firm stated that maintaining the temperature of the ski slope uses the same energy as more than 6,000 fridge freezers per day and produces over 500 tonnes of CO2 a year.
The cost of meeting the slopes energy requirements has increased by 500% since 2021. On average, it takes 5,900 kwh per day to run.
A quick bit of googling on average South of Scotland electricity carbon intensity for 2023 and some basic number crunching suggests the actual C02 emissions attributable would be around 57tonnes and would be expected to progressively trend downwards.
It would appear from the statement put out by Xsite that there are structural issues with the snow slope section of the building and this has previously been given with regards to downscaling and cancellation of previously hosted park nights.
I recall from being on a tour of the facility in December 2005 that there was a convoluted process of very gradually building up a substantial depth of solid water ice on the metal sheeting over which coolant pipes were suspended a few inches off the shetting. This process was overall going to take months and it was critical that the ice depth was kept constant over the length of the slope.
It was explained at the time - perhaps badly? - that the ice was in effect 'structural' and once in place the coolant pipes were permanently entombed in said ice. The question was asked by several people, what happens if there is a leak?
The explanation was that there was a large number of individual loops and if a leak occurred that particular loop would be permanently isolated and abandoned because repair was not an option!
Whatever if any role that played in today's decision is not known, but there are several factors which point to the location and design of the facility being it's undoing rather than an indoor slope not being viable in Scotland.
Firstly, is the choice to build on a flat site and build the slope into a building with the scale of structure required to create and support the snow slope.
It was the thesis of Xscape founder Pierre-Yves Gerbeau that snowsports wasn't attractive enough going forward and people would only to travel to large multi activity facilities with a large retail footprint, which partly explains the location. All Xscape sites are/were just off major motorways.
However in the case of Braehead it could well be argued that the site chosen being to the West of the heavily congested city centre section of the M8 was the wrong side of Glasgow.
At the aforementioned preview tour it became apparent that Pierre-Yves Gerbeau and other senior project persons were unaware that mountain snowsports existed in Scotland. Glasgow has the second densest suburban rail network in the UK outside London, but Xscape chose a site completely unserved by rail.
Which raises questions as to how well thought out and researched the entire thing was!
An on terrain slope which could have been built at substantially less cost for a longer facility, could have been located near to a railway station and better located to be more central and rapidly accessible to a greater chunk of the Central Belt population. Would it have performed better?
Edited 1 times. Last edit at 23.47hrs Wed 4 Oct 23 by winterhighland.
