No-one wanted our old school - now it's an £8m outdoor sport hub

There's a buzz of anticipation about a former primary school in southern Scotland which was declared surplus to requirements nearly a decade ago.

The impressive granite building has been a distinctive part of Dalbeattie for 150 years.

However, it closed its doors in 2017 when the children moved to the town's new learning campus and faced an uncertain future.

An £8m project has now transformed it into an outdoor activity centre - including a £722,000 pump track which will play host to a world championship qualifying event next month.

The scheme, called Rocks and Wheels, has been nine years in the making.

Michelle McRobert, chief executive of the Dalbeattie Community Initiative which manages it, said the idea came after extensive consultation about what the area needed to "thrive in the future".

Where once locals learned their times tables, there is now a 52-bed bunkhouse, 100-seat cafe, indoor bouldering facility and the pump track - as well as community rooms for hire.

"That will all become live over the next six months and we'll build up," said Michelle.

"We'll start doing events and then we'll be open every day, seven days a week, hopefully 10:00 until 22:00."

Backed by a "patchwork of funding" from a huge range of groups and individuals she said it would "future-proof the building" for generations to come.

"In the last three to four years, it was getting into a state where the building would maybe have not survived," she said.

"Nobody else was interested in doing anything with the building, like many schools across the region.

"If we hadn't taken it on under community asset transfer, I'm unsure of what would have happened to the big buildings."

One major source of excitement is the upcoming pump track world championships qualifiers on 14 June where the winners of the junior categories will head to Sweden and the adults to China.

Rocks and Wheels project co-ordinator Maria Rawlings said: "We hope that this is just a starting point to see what natural talent we have in Dalbeattie once they start using the track.

"We're really excited to be hosting the world championships qualifiers."

The big event will hopefully help open a few eyes to what is on offer.

"I think people are still trying to understand what a pump track is all about," said Maria.

"It doesn't matter what you show on paper, on videos - I think to actually watch it live is quite an impressive sport to watch.

"We're thinking that this is just the starting point for what we're going to have for the future.

"We don't know what hidden talent we've got here, and if we are successful enough to have somebody win to go to Sweden, that will just be amazing."

Among those taking to the start line will be 13-year-old Ollie Stewart from nearby Crocketford who is delighted to have the facility.

"It's really good because I can ride from my house to it in the summer," he said.

"It's good and it'll bring people together to ride bikes and have fun.

"It's very good because you can take it easy and go slow or you can go flat out as fast as you can and you can get in the air and hit jumps - it's really good."

Eleven-year-old Samuel Dickie, who lives just outside the town, loves a wide range of cycling and attends events right around the country.

He is entered for the qualifiers and enjoys downhill, enduro and cyclocross but said road cycing was "boring".

That's not the case for the pump track though.

"I like it because you can get speed and do doubles (jumps) and stuff," he said.

"It can be dangerous, but if you do it right, it's fine."

And he hopes the track can benefit the area too.

"I think it'll bring a lot of income to the town," he said, "and Dalbeattie will be famous again."