Pair mortgage homes to buy hostel

The pair from Cardiff were attracted to the remote hostel

Two ramblers from Cardiff have mortgaged their homes to buy a remote hillside youth hostel in mid Wales.

They have come to the aid of an action group, which formed in May to save three hostels from closure.

The Dolgoch, Blaencaron and Tyncornel Youth Hostel Association (YHA) properties, near Tregaron, Ceredigion, are not attracting enough visitors.

The couple paid more than £125,000 for Tyncornel hostel while the fight goes on to save the other two.

The pair, who are partners, are going lease it back to the Elenydd Wilderness Hostels Trust for five years, but there will be an option to extend the lease after that period.

The couple who are buying the hostel had been walking with friends Bill Hine

The trust started its campaign to save the hostels after the YHA announced in January it was to sell 32 of its sites around the UK. It says it is responding to demand for better facilities and locations.

Elenydd Wilderness Hostels Trust secretary Bill Hine, said the couple decided to buy the hostel after walking with friends between the three hostels at Easter.

"They decided that Tyncornel must stay open as a hostel to keep the beautiful Doethie valley area accessible to walkers and lovers of these wild places.

"They want to remain reasonably anonymous, but to satisfy curiosity - they are professional people in their mid-thirties living in Cardiff and have taken out mortgages on their own homes to raise the money."

The trust said the three hostels - known as bunk houses - typified what hostelling was all about.

Tyncornel is a favourite with those in search of solitude, it added.

A one-time farmhouse, the isolated property is next to an old drovers' track across the hills.

Walkers are attracted to the remote hostels in mid Wales

As for the other hostels, Blaencaron is already on the market while Dolgoch is expected to go on sale next year.

Nearly one in seven youth hostels in England and Wales will shut over the next three years to help fund a revamp of the remaining properties, the YHA announced in January.

It plans to invest £18m in some 200 remaining hostels to upgrade facilities and make them more attractive to visitors.

Other hostels in Wales are earmarked for closure at Capel-y-Ffin in Monmouthshire and Trefin in Pembrokeshire.

In Llangollen a campaign has already started to save the town's 120-bed hostel which is also set to close.