New owner homes in on Kirk college

A 100-YEAR-OLD Church of Scotland college which trained hundred of missionaries has been sold for conversion to a private house.

St Colm's College in Inverleith Terrace was put on the market at 3.2 million after the Kirk decided it could no longer afford to maintain it.

A petition to keep it open, backed by Christian leaders from around the world as they attended a major international conference in Edinburgh last summer, failed to persuade Kirk bosses to think again.

Today, selling agents CKD Galbraith said there had been a lot of interest in the property from purchasers proposing to convert it into a hotel, flats or a nursing home.

However, they confirmed the B-listed college, set in almost an acre of grounds and with its own tennis courts, had been sold to a private individual who plans to turn it into a house.

A spokesman said they could not disclose the price paid because of a confidentiality clause in the agreement.

The Church of Scotland's General Assembly was told last year it would have cost more than 400,000 to maintain the college over the next few years and a further 700,000 to upgrade it.

The sale of St Colm's comes just weeks after the Kirk agreed to spend 1.7m on building a spa and fitness centre at the hotel it owns in the Holy Land.

The Scots Hotel in Tiberias, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, provides accommodation for pilgrims and tourists from around the world.

Competition from other hotels in the area, many of them offering fitness facilities for guests, has prompted the church to begin work on a new fitness centre of its own, which it says will help safeguard existing jobs, create new jobs and raise extra income.

The centre will comprise a gymnasium, sauna, jacuzzi and a number of rooms for health treatments such as reflexology and massage.

The hotel has long been a source of controversy in the Kirk, especially when other aspects of the church's work are being cut but the Very Rev Dr Andrew McLellan, convener of the Kirk's world mission council, said: "This hotel is more than just a comfortable base for tourists and pilgrims in Israel. It has the potential to be a centre for peace and reconciliation in an area of the world that needs these things urgently and we intend to build on those aspects of our work.

"The financial returns from this centre will help fund the Church of Scotland's work with its partners in Israel, Palestine and throughout the world."