Lanark Development Trust wants town tourism boost

That is the main conclusion of a major survey of the town’s prospects, resulting in a ‘wish list’ of measures the Lanark Community Development Trust want taken to revive the town’s fortunes.

The priorities on that list from a ‘Vision for Lanark’ workshop within the Trust have now been decided and they point to a massive tourism push as the quickest way back to prosperity.

It would probably come as a surprise to most young Lanarkians that thousands of folk came to Lanark for their annual holidays in the years leading up to World War One.

Placed on the list’s ‘High Contribution to Growth’ section are: Heritage and Sculpture Trails between Lanark and New Lanark, an Adventure Park in Castlebank Park, dressing up the ‘sterile’ High Street with murals and creating attractive window displays in vacant shops, creating additional parking for buses and tourists at the top of Delves Park, developing a visitor centre/museum, perhaps at the Tolbooth, building a cinema or re-erecting the old wooden auction ring at Alston’s Yard and developing old St Kentigern’s in Lanark Cemetery as a tourist attraction linked to Wallace.

For more on this story pick up a copy of this week’s Lanark Gazette, which is in the shops now.