In reply to yer maw: Yes, I'm emotionally attached to the wall as are quite a few other people who now find a large part of their week empty through it's loss.
Nobody said the wall was perfect, but most of the constraints came from the under investment which came through the insecurity of knowing you could be tossed out any day of the week, as has just happened. Yes we were aware of the short falls that could have been resolved through investment of capital but the question was who was going to benefit from it all, the wall or the land lord once we were chucked out.
What hurts me most is people looking at the cosmetics only and ignoring key factors that were introduced to improve the "climbing" experience. 1. In the last year 90% of the routes had been changed, a massive task considering the scale of the wall; carried out principally by Olga;
2. Dry tooling was introduced, a feature enjoyed by many and unique in Scotland.
3. Efforts were made to brighten the place, The Matterhorn painted on the front sports wall for example and re-paints of various surfaces all over the place. Again the previous lease holder spent minimal money on the structure and to do more ourselves would have been a waste of investment.
4. With regards the thickened ropes no rope was 18mm thick but I accept that some ropes had thickened over time. This was due to the recycling of rope from the higher walls to the lower walls. This had partially been addressed as new rope was introduced in the training area and elsewhere recently, however the cost would have been prohibitive to throw out all the existing rope and some of the older stuff was left in. Acccepted that some of it didn't handle great but it was safe and it's a small issue to nit pick on.
I said the leading was unsurpassed so please don't misquote me.
Now can you see why I'm running short of breath going over the same old ground. Constraints existed, that's the bottom line. Alien Rock and Glasgow are choc a block because they are situated in the two largest population centres in Scotland(duh!) and Alien rock still has concession times for off peak periods. Considering Alien Rock is less than a third of the size of Hadrian's what does that tell you. If you think there's a major gap in the market and want to set up a wall in Falkirk pop in and buy some panels, holds and rope. Show us how it's done, by all means. See the following thread for contact numbers or pop in Sunday and talk over details with Paul.
http://www.ukclimbing.com/caff/forums/t.php?n=34905