Hi,
Just to set the record strainght for HE, whilst I, along with the rest of the Council, have fully supported the project to open up the Shallcross incline, and am delighted that is has been successful, it is purely cooincidental that it has finally happened during my year as Chair. The hard work has been done by Councillor John Swift, who started to tackle this project during his year as Chair in 2010, and who continued it last year. He has kept it all going and sorted out the myriads of issues that needed to be dealt with. The groundworks were then managed by Wayne Bexton at DCC. It is John Swift we all need to thank for bringing the project to fruition. This particular project has taken over 40 years. There are letters from 1972 in the Mechanics Institute where the idea is first discussed and enquiries are being made of the various parties. It can take a long time to get some of these projects to happen!
I've had quite a bit of feedback on the incline since it opened , and all of it has been very positive. A lot of people are using it. It's great ,as in joining up with the Whaley incline, it forms a peaceful artery through the centre of Whaley Bridge. The hope is that we can extend it further in the future.
Many thanks to all for the various comments about the shallcross incline below. What we are after are any pictures, engravings or interesting bits of text or information that we can put on the information boards. We plan on two boards, one at the top and one at the bottom, and would like to have different text/pictures on each. The town clerk is trying to put something together at the moment, and has several books to reference, but there aren't any pictures we can use. The board at the bottom end might be a good place to put a picture of the goods yard, but at the top end a picture, or reproduction of a sketch/painting would be great. As you say, the line was disused before photography took off, so pictures may not be around. It would be great though if we could find something.
My own project this year has been raising the money to resurface the Whaley Bridge MUGA with an artificial grass surface (3G). I have now successfully managed to raise all the funding to get the project going, and work should start on the £155,000 project in the next couple of weeks. This project has taken me just under 3 years to bring to fruition.
The skate park and BMX track have attracted nearly £140,000 of funding and are being built at the moment, and the seperate £230,000 of capital expenditure on the memorial park, as part of the successful £478,000 Heritage Lottery Fund bid, should start to be spent this year too. The HLF bid took around 3 to 4 years from the initial talks about it at HPBC until it actually was successful.
A very large sum of money is also being spent on Whaley Bridge Station at the moment , thanks to the efforts of Cllr Anne Winter and Cllr John Pritchard, who have been busy in their contacts with Network Rail via the Council and through the Friends of Whaley Bridge Station. The Council have been trying for years to get the station platform height increased, and it is finally happening. The waiting room has also been renovated, and the pedestrian bridge over the railway is also going to have the same treatment. It is possible it will be taken away on a large lorry for renovation, so dont assume it's metal thieves if you wake up one day and notice it has gone :)
It's looking like a good year for Whaley Bridge.
Cheers
Jon.
