NATIONAL Trust for Scotland (NTS) bosses are coming under yet more pressure to back down on plans to close their heritage centre at Bannockburn until 2022.

Last week we revealed the organisation was set to mothball the visitor hub at the famous battle site for two years as part of a plan to tackle a projected £28 million coronavirus cash shortfall.

The news – which could see 20 workers at the site made redundant – has sparked widespread anger.

Local politicians met with NTS chiefs yesterday to push them on the closure plans.

Stirling Council Leader Scott Farmer hit out at the trust for not consulting with the local authority before details of the proposals were made public.

He said: “The tourism sector is a major employer, and the Stirling area makes a significant cultural offering with key destinations such as the Castle, the Wallace Monument and the Bannockburn Centre. Once it is safe to do so, these important attractions must be opened for business as they are crucial to the wider hospitality-related economy in Stirling.

“The Bannockburn Heritage Centre is not only important to the tourism offer of the area but plays an important educational role, that is why I was disappointed that there was no consultation with the council prior to the NTS’s plans becoming public knowledge.”

The SNP MSP Bruce Crawford, who helped secure funding for the centre and who also attended the meeting, said the two-year closure “would be devastating to individuals, communities and to how we mark our historical culture”.

His Westminster colleague Alyn Smith said he recognised the NTS had “a number of legal restrictions upon it as a charity”, but suggested the body needed to “do things differently” and “work in new ways”.

Meanwhile, a group of pro-independence supporters are due to gather outside the centre on Friday in protest,

Sean Clerkin, who has organised the demonstration, said it was “nothing short of cultural and historic vandalism to close the Bannockburn Heritage Centre”.

As well as the high-tech £9 million centre – which hosted 44,148 visitors last year – the trust is set to temporarily close a number of other properties and is considering making more than 400 employees redundant, including 75% of the NTS Ranger Service who help look after the 76,000 hectares of countryside in the organisation’s care.

Thousands have signed a petition calling for the NTS to rethink the job cuts and reopen properties to the public as soon as it is possible.

The Trust itself has said it has little choice, with the pandemic wiping out most of their income for the year. Over the weekend they launched a Save Our Scotland appeal in a bid to raise cash from supporters.

Stuart Maxwell, NTS’s general manager, said: “The situation that we’re in just now is utterly unprecedented and to be blunt we’re in trouble.

“We should be welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world to our properties at the moment but we’re not.

“At places like Barry Mill, Kellie Castle and Falkland Palace, we’re gearing up to get people in to the grounds but we can’t yet let anyone inside the buildings.

“That impacts massively on our ability to fund not just the major projects that we had lined up such as Gladstone’s Land and House of Dun but the general upkeep of properties beyond the most basic guardianship.”

Last week, a whistleblower told The National staff were “shocked” by the extent of the closures, with many other properties set to stay shut into 2021 despite employee confidence in their ability to run them safely.

The Scottish Government has said it is “exploring” support options.