Caerlee Mill mountain bike centre conversion abandoned

Prof Russel Griggs, who chairs SOSE, said the scale of the difficulty in coverting the mill had emerged over time.

“As you get in to looking at an old building – kind of like an old car – until you actually get inside them and look at them you don’t know what the issues are,” he said.

“As we got further into looking at the mill building we discovered an awful lot of stuff that means it is either going to cost an awful lot more money or we are going to have to knock the building down.”

He said he was confident they could secure a new location for the development within months.