YHA to close Elenydd Youth Hostels

The Youth Hostels Association is pulling out of the Cambrian Mountains. It announced in 2005/6 that Blaencaron and Tyncornel would close at the end of the 2006 season, and Dolgoch at the end of 2007.

In response, a campaign was started to save one or more of the hostels, and it has already succeeded in securing the future of Tyncornel as a hostel, and is working to save Dolgoch. Sadly Blaencaron has already been sold to a private buyer. For more information, visit the Elenydd Wilderness Hostels website.

The Elenydd hostels typified the simple accommodation in remote locations which once formed a large part of the YHA network, and which so directly furthered YHA's original charitable aims of helping "all, especially young people of limited means, to a greater knowledge, love and care of the countryside...."

In recent years, YHA has progressively remodelled itself into a provider of budget accommodation in popular locations, and it is no longer willing to subsidise hostels which are under-used, or which fail to fit its modern image.

Twenty years ago, there were six simple hostels in the Cambrian Mountains area. The three already closed were at Nant-y-dernol near Llangurig, Ystumtuen near Ponterwyd, and Bryn Poeth Uchaf near Rhandirmwyn. Four of them - Bryn Poeth Uchaf, Tyncornel, Blaencaron and Ystumtuen - are/were on or close to the route of the Cambrian Way walkers' trail from Cardiff to Conwy, and their demise is linked to the failure in the 1970s of the Cambrian Way to be adopted as a National Trail. Each closure has reduced the possibilities for planning hostel-based walking and cycling trips in the Cambrian Mountains, and thus the viability of the remaining hostels.

Many YHA members had been apprehensive about the future of the last three hostels, and huge amounts of volunteer time, labour, and donations have been spent in keeping the hostels clean, comfortable, and in good repair, and in trying to boost visitor numbers.

Ironically, it was only in 2004 that the remote Tyncornel hostel, at the head of the Doethie valley, received EU Objective 1 funding to help provide it with electricity. More recently, local authorities in the area have started co-operating - for the first time - to look for ways of managing change in the Elenydd. In addition, Ceredigion County Council has adopted a more positive approach to maintenance and publicity for the Cambrian Way.

On hearing the closure announcements, the Society wrote to the Chairman of YHA, Chris Boulton, expressing its sadness, and

	explaining that one of the Society's aims is to encourage economic activity such as sustainable tourism of the kind represented by the YHA;
	suggesting that innovative ways of securing the future of the hostels should be explored;
	appealing for a postponement of closure, to allow more time for the development of initiatives which might save the hostels.