According to the local paper BW are to spend £27,000 doing up the BW yard at
Ellesmere. That is their share with £80,000 from the local council and £25,000
from the regional mob. All this money will be used to repair the yard
buildings. Apart from the costs this sounds good but then comes the comment
that... 'BW is investigating how this site might be sensitively redeveloped in
the future, keeping it in operation while providing visitor attractions'.
At this point I could not but recall a similar improvement job was done to
Hartshill Yard some years back with it being opened to the public to show
aspects of the work done there. No sooner opened it was than it shut and even
the local office there was closed to the public (being moved elsewhere in one
of BWs endless reshuffles to new offices). Then the yard was fenced off to the
public while the offices were taken over by a private firm. Result - most of
the money spent at Hartshill was wasted.
Let's hope a similar fate will not claim Ellesmere's (still very historic)
yard.
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