23/07/2025
If you've got Ā£6500 behind the sofa cushions?
If not please give a little to the crowdfund
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AGNGXgycW/
For the past 12 years, we have made the case for rehabilitating our grand Victorian asset for public benefit. Against the odds and despite National Highways' determined efforts to wreck our vision, stakeholders have come on board and Sustransā recent feasibility study demonstrates that the benefits to the region would be significant. So many positive people share the ambition.
But the government has chosen to waste Ā£7.5M of public money putting Queensbury Tunnel permanently beyond use, less than four years after Ā£7.2M was spent on strengthening works, āensuring that any future plans for the re-use of the structure can be realisedā.
So, do we call it a day or do we keep fighting?
Itās clear from yesterdayās meeting with the Minister that the reasons for pursuing abandonment now are inexplicably feeble. Her decision says much about just how poorly we are served by decision-makers and even more about just how unworthy National Highways is to be custodian of our great railway heritage. But weāll go more into that in due course.
The immediate priority is to understand whether there are grounds to mount a legal challenge of the Ministerās decision. To that end, we have launched a crowdfunding appeal to raise Ā£6,500 which would fund the āpre-action stageā of a Judicial Review. Reaching an initial target of Ā£1,300 will get the ball rolling.
Itās never been our way to ask for your money; the campaign has largely been paid for from our own pockets. But we canāt do this alone.
If you care about the tunnel, care about deriving real value from every pound of taxpayersā money, care about ambitious active travel provision, care about a better future for our kids, grandkids and the communities hereabouts, then please put whatever you can reasonably afford in the pot. Hereās the linkā¦
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-queensbury-tunnel/
Very many thanks, in anticipation, and please share this as widely as possible.
