A NEW HOME FOR COLLABORATORS AND INNOVATORS AT THE CRICHTON

The South of Scotland will soon be home to a new state-of-the-art co-working space at The Crichton in Dumfries.

The Crichton, an 85-acre parkland estate, is already home to 80+ business, third sector and academic tenants and partners and has stunning grounds and gardens, one of the largest auditoriums in the South of Scotland, a hotel,
business park, college and university campus, bistro, spa, bar, church, farm, dairy centre and nearby golf course. It is a beautiful historic estate with iconic sandstone buildings and is perhaps better known as a former psychiatric hospital.

The Crichton Trust and partners have ambitious plans to make The Crichton a centre for learning and rural business innovation and the new Crichton Central facility will become an important terminus and interchange for ideas and a central station for collaboration and innovation at The Crichton.

Crichton Central will be intergenerational and accessible co-working space in the stunning grounds of The Crichton. It will offer flexible meeting spaces and offices, an events and performance space and a modern café and shop. It will also boast electric charging points and will be heated from the waste generated on site and from The Crichton Royal Dairy Farm. It will also be the first co-working business centre in Scotland to have a Changing Places toilet and shower.

Work to transform the existing Criffel View building into Crichton Central is now underway and is being financially supported by the Scottish Government through a substantial grant from the South of Scotland Enterprise (formerly the South of Scotland Economic Partnership).

Gwilym Gibbons, Chief Executive of The Crichton Trust, said: “We saw an opportunity for a centre for knowledge exchange that could build on and celebrate the community we have become and help us develop and grow further into the community we want to be. Conveniently located between the academic campus and the business park at The Crichton, Criffel View is the perfect place for informal knowledge exchange between business and academia. It is a beautiful building full of character and history.

I am even more confident that Crichton Central will be a great asset to the South of Scotland as we respond to the ongoing challenges of Covid-19. Arguably we have never understood more fully what we miss and don’t miss about the traditional office or the importance of connecting with others. With more people working from home, the
demand for flexible and affordable collaborative working space is predicted to rise and as digital connectivity improves, we are less limited by our geographic location – we can live and work in inspirational and physically remote places.

Crichton Central will offer a place to encounter and connect with others. It will offer a home from home, with gigabit connectivity, a range of business support services and access to advice and investors. I believe Crichton Central will become a destination of choice for mobile workers, researchers, freelancers, entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers and I can’t wait to welcome them all to the South of Scotland.”

Crichton Central is scheduled to open early in 2021.

Enquiries re Crichton Central should be directed to central@crichton.co.uk 

The Crichton Trust would like to acknowledge the Scottish Government and the South of Scotland Economic Partnership (now South of Scotland Enterprise) for financially supporting the Crichton Central development. 

The Crichton Trust is also delighted to be working in partnership with The Boyd Group and Smith Design Associates Dumfries and to be utilising the services of local trades to deliver the Crichton Central development.