HRH The Princess Royal, the president of World Horse Welfare (WHW), officially opened the new WHW visitor centre and indoor arena last week at the charity's Belwade Farm Rescue and Rehoming Centre near Aboyne, Aberdeenshire.

The long-awaited new arena will now allow staff to carry out rehabilitation with horses and ponies all year round. The 60m x 30m indoor arena along with viewing gallery, lecture hall, visitor centre and cafe will allow the charity to showcase its work as well as offer educational tours.

"The horses in our care, together with the staff dedicated to them, had an urgent need for an indoor riding arena to combat the effect of freezing winter temperatures, sometimes as low as -21oc," said Roly Owers, chief executive at World Horse Welfare.

"This has been a long time coming, Belwade was the only WHW centre without an indoor arena. Heavy snow fall and icy ground at Belwade Farm always lost us valuable time with the horses' rehabilitation programmes. In some years, up to four months of training time had to be abandoned due to poor weather.

"Now, with the new indoor facilities, staff will be able to rehabilitate horses for 12 months of the year. This increased work capacity is great news as our rehabilitated and subsequently rehomed horses move on to new loving homes, we'll have more space to continue to admit the many horses in need in Scotland."

The new lecture hall and visitor centre at Belwade Farm will allow the charity to reach more people and to educate them about the work of the charity – both in Britain and overseas – horse care and the challenges facing horses around the world.

"The charity is seeking sponsorship of its new facilities, which can also be hired by local community members and businesses," added Roly. "The development was funded by the charity's investment income, a number of charitable trusts and many individuals who donated to our successful 2009 Belwade Farm Silver Horseshoe appeal. The excellent new café should help to provide valuable income to help fund the charity's work, as well as providing a new space for the community to enjoy."

Hamish Lochore, an ILPH Scottish field officer as WHW was originally known, helped set up Belwade Farm in 1989. Around 10 years ago Hamish decided a dual purpose indoor facility would be useful and set about fundraising to build the shed which was named 'Hamish's Shed' as well fully repairing the track from the A93. The shed is sectioned into large pens, similar to cattle courts, and open out into the fields. This allows the horses who are kpet as herds to have free access in and out at their free will for shelter all year round.

The new arena has been nicknamed 'Eileen's Hut' after centre manager Eileen Gillen, and she said the new facilities will help the staff at Belwade to rehabilitate the horses.

"The centre here is a dream for me to showcase the charity, our horses and our education work. So far, there's been 55 horses rehomed this year. This extra training time will have a huge positive impact on the speed of rehabilitation and then rehoming, and will enable us to help even more horses at a time of increasing cases of horse neglect," explained Eileen.

"There's around 1700 World Horse Welfare rehomed horses and ponies throughout Britain and we are not a sanctuary, but a giant horse recycling project," pointed out Roly.

The number of UK horses urgently needing World Horse Welfare's help has risen by almost 50% in the last five years.

"With all four centres worryingly near to capacity, it is vital that the charity is able to rehabilitate and rehome the horses that come into their care as quickly as possible. Space is always needed to admit the next desperate horse or group of horses in urgent need and Aberdeenshire has one of the highest horse populations in Britain," added Roly.

Currently there's around 65 horses at Belwade, at all stages in their recuperation. The day featured horses which had been rehomed and a demonstration, they included WHW Haggis, who has now been rehomed locally after arriving in 2010 with hugely overgrown hooves, and WHW Twiggy, who arrived at the centre's Penny Farm as a four-day-old foal with her dam, today she is a pony club allrounder and represented Scotland in tetrathlons with rider, Olivia Burns.

Belwade Farm is open all year, Wednesday-Sunday and bank holidays, from 11am to 4pm, admission is free and group visits are welcome. Call the farm on 01339 887186 for more information. Visit www.worldhorsewelfare.org