New Youth Hostel For National Forest
 Work is due to start on a new £3.2 million hostel development in the National Forest later this year, but elsewhere smaller hostels are being closed down...
Posted: 5 April 2006
by Jon
With most of the recent news about Youth Hostels centring on
closures, it's good to see a new one being built in the midst of The
National Forest.
The new hostel, which will open next year comes in at a cool
£3.2 million with the final £1.78 million coming from East
Midlands Development Agency (emda), together with LeicesterShire
Economic Partnership.
The new hostel will be run by the YHA - Youth Hostels Association
- and sited at Moira
in the middle of the 200 square mile forest which covers parts of
Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. The hostel will attract
an estimated 12,000 overnight stays a year, primarily from
schools, youth organisations and families visiting the Forest and
there will also be a camping and caravanning site.
The hostel will be built - and we quote - 'to a high environmental
specification' with a striking design incorporating features relating
to renewable fuel (woodfuel) and the use of timber. You can see an
artist's impression of the building below.
Construction is due to begin in October 2006 with the opening
expected by Easter 2007. Visitors to the Hostel will be able to take
full advantage of the wide range of activities available in The
National Forest from walking, cycling and horse riding to
survival skills training, greenwood crafts and ski-ing or
snowboarding on perma-snow. Heritage visits and trips to market
towns cater for those who choose a calmer pace.
Bucks The Trend?
It's an interesting development for the YHA which increasingly
sees itself competing with bed and breakfast and hotel accommodation
and has severely rationalised its hostel operation with a number of
smaller hostels marked for closure
many of them in walking areas and, in particular, on the Pennine
Way.
It seems like a sad shift away from catering for hardcore
walkers and cyclists and providing a service towards larger, more
profitable hostels in popular, more accessible areas.
More on The National Forest at www.visitconkers.com
and on the YHA at www.yha.org.uk
Discuss this story
I was quite disgusted at the YHA decision to close so many YHs. From my own view I thought the basic Welsh hostels were brilliant value for those of us who wanted to get out to the hills at the w/e. I still hold to the original YHA ideal, and plan, when my England and Wales YHA membership lapses, to join the SYHA. Any new YHAs are of course a bonus, particularly this one in the New Forest. The drift towards YHAs based in cities and with no members kitchen seems unstoppable.
Posted: 05/04/2006 at 17:19
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