Winter Garden

In the Spring of 2024 Visit Scotland announced the closure of every Visitor Information Centre in Scotland. This announcement was met with widespread dismay on Bute as the building which houses the Isle of Bute Discovery Centre (Bute’s tourist information centre) is the Winter Garden, a spectacular Grade A listed building which also includes the island’s only cinema.

Given the BCLC constitution allows us to own assets (unlike many other charities), the Board of Trustees agreed to help explore options for a community acquisition of the Winter Garden and in January 2025 the BCLC Board established a specific steering group for this purpose.

Steering group members include the Chair of BCLC and the group reports regularly to the Board of BCLC. The first thing the steering group did was to conduct a community consultation to establish whether the community would support plans for a community acquisition to provide an enhanced cinema with arts, entertainment and associated facilities in the Winter Garden.

The decision on whether the Winter Garden becomes a community asset will wholly depend on the strength of the Business Case for the use of the building - and BCLC Trustees will not proceed in facilitating transfer of the asset without such a strong case.

The Winter Garden Steering Group has created separate social media accounts to provide updates to the community about progress for this particular project. Further details are available here: Bute Community Winter Garden