T in the Park is to leave its current Balado home in 2015, it’s been announced, and move to the grounds of nearby Strathallan Castle. The festival’s new site is located near Auchterarder in southern Perthshire, approximately an hour away from both Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the event will take place within the 1000-acre estate of the 19th-century castle.

Questions had been raised about T in the Park’s future following safety concerns about an oil pipeline that runs underneath the festival’s current airfield site in Balado. Earlier this year, the Health and Safety Executive required promoters DF Concerts to find a new site for next year’s event. There have been months of speculation over the festival’s future, with sites including Drumdownie, Gleneagles, Loch Lomond and Stirling proposed as potential new homes. Following an extensive period of secretive negotiations, agreements have been signed to move the event to the Strathallan site, less than 20 miles away from Balado.

Geoff Ellis, CEO of DF Concerts, said: ‘When it became clear we’d need to leave Balado to safeguard the future of the festival, we became very excited about the prospect of Strathallan becoming the new home. We thought it would be perfect and it is.’

A spokesperson for T in the Park added: ‘We’ve been extremely happy in Kinross for 18 years, but the restrictions placed upon us by health and safety protocol meant that we had no real option but to leave to safeguard the future of the event. We tried very hard to find a solution, but the site orientation available to us was completely unworkable, plus we would have had to use additional fields which were unsuitable. Rather than seriously damaging the quality of the event, we decided to move on – and we’re delighted to have found the perfect new home at Strathallan Castle.’

Scotland’s biggest music festival, attracting 85,000 music fans a day, T in the Park was launched at Strathclyde Country Park near Glasgow in 1994, moving to Balado three years later, where it has remained for 18 years. A festival spokesperson added that Strathallan will provide T in the Park with greater flexibilty in site layout, and that there is enough space for future expansion of festival content. However, concerns have been raised by local residents about the impact of the festival’s arrival, especially the current road infrastructure’s ability to cope with the influx of festival-goers.

Festival organisers have said that more news about 2015 will be revealed soon, but promise a spectacular send-off for the final Balado event, whose performers include Biffy Clyro, Calvin Harris, Arctic Monkeys, Paul Weller, the Pixies and the Manic Street Preachers.