A CAMPAIGN to transform the former Crookston School site near Wallyford into a state-of-the-art Battle of Pinkie Cleugh heritage centre has overcome a key hurdle.

Members of a local steering group, which is leading the project, had “positive” talks with the owner of the site last week.

Ian Irving, Alister Hadden, Roger Knox and Andrew Coulson travelled to The Anderson Group’s headquarters in Motherwell where they met company representatives for the first time.

The group from the Musselburgh area, including representatives from Inveresk and Wallyford, is keen to see the site of the derelict school building on Salters Road transformed into a heritage centre similar to the visitor experiences at Bannockburn and Culloden.

Mr Coulson said: “We were glad to find that the company would be entirely open to the possibility of such a development, and the discussion was very useful in focussing our ideas about how to take it forward.”

He said the company might consider developing the heritage centre and renting it back to the heritage group.

He added that the heritage group would also be open to the possibility of buying and developing the site itself.

Mr Coulson said: “The next step is to talk to various heritage interests to see if it is a viable project. It is still very exploratory but we are very hopeful and are prepared to work at it.”

He said the former school building, visible from the A1 road, could not be re-used and would have to be knocked down to make way for the new centre.

A spokesman for The Anderson Group, which deals in transport, logistics, truck and van sales and property, confirmed that they looked at ways to help advance the plan at the meeting.

He explained that one of the options could be for the company to property develop the site, which could be leased back to the heritage group.

He said that The Anderson Group had not marketed the property or land which it formerly used as a haulage base for the coal industry. He said the company had not decided what it was going to to do with the site.

The spokesman stressed that the company had a commercial interest in the site, adding they could not “guarantee” it for an “indefinite” length of time as it could be sold at some point.

The heritage centre plan is being backed by Inveresk Village Society and the Old Musselburgh Club as well, as the Pinkie Cleugh Battlefield Group, which commemorates the battle between the Scots and English, known as ‘Bloody Saturday’, each year on its anniversary, September 10. The Musselburgh Museum and Heritage Group has also thrown its weight behind the initiative.

Mr Irving told the Courier: “The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547 was the biggest battle ever fought in Scotland, involving thousands of troops, and about 6,000 were killed.

“It was also the first modern battle on British soil featuring combined arms cooperation between infantry, artillery and cavalry, together with naval bombardment off the shore at Musselburgh in support of land forces.”