Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has announced plans to return the Cairngorm Mountain funicular railway near Aviemore, Scotland, to private ownership within four years.

The organisation took over the operating company - Cairngorm Mountain Limited (CML) - last summer after financial difficulties cast doubt over the long-term future of the facility. However, HIE has now set out a strategic plan to return CML to alternative ownership, which it expects will take between two and three years to fully deliver and would lead to a sustainable financial model for the railway.

William Roe, HIE chair, said: "Its contribution to the popularity of the Highlands during winter months is significant, but we need to endow it with a competitive reputation as a year-round visitor destination, attractive as a business proposal to a private operator. "We believe we can achieve this through enhancing its revenue potential - improving infrastructure, carrying out planned maintenance, developing the business structure and procurement strategy. We will also be putting in place a strategic overview of HIE's ownership of Cairngorm Estate."

Consultants Johnson and Carmichael set out a number of options for the future of operations at Cairngorm, which also included a partial rebranding and repositioning of the business.