CRIL staff hard at work manning our stall at Coalville indoor market yesterday. A very successful event providing an opportunity to meet the public and hear their views and to sell our calendar. Sales went well and we recommend placing orders to crilchair@gmail.com to avoid disappointment.
We have booked a stall in the Coalville indoor market on Saturday 26th September. In the absence of events due to Covid this is one way of meeting people to gather support for our campaign. It will also provide an opportunity to sell the CRIL calendar which will give our campaigns a much needed boost.
We are delighted to announce that we have been one of ten campaigns selected from a field of sixty entrants to receive central Government support for the “Restoring your Railways” fund.
In a letter copied to our Chair, Geoff Bushell, Chris Heaton-Harris MP, Minister of State for Transport confirmed that a panel including the Minister for Regional Growth and the Chair of Network Rail had agreed our submission was worthy of funding and additional work.
We will be “agreeing potential research remits and joint governance and timescales”, which in everyday language means that there is still a long way to go. However the selection of our bid makes it clear that we have a credible case which warrants both greater support and scrutiny than ever before.
We would like to thank all members of the team for their incredible hard work in putting together the twenty-page bid with so much care and attention to detail. It is just so exciting to see all the effort pay off.
We’ll be keeping everyone updated in the months ahead, and if you want to get priority information, please consider becoming a member of our group and supporting us financially for the day to day running costs we incur.
We are delighted to announce that multiple local county and district councils have jointly funded a new feasibility for the re-opening of the Ivanhoe Line.
The funding, totalling £60,000 will be used to engage a rail consultant to write a new feasibility report with the historic context of the 2009 and 2016 reports that we believe had omissions. For instance, the 206 report did not look at future housing development and used an out of date demand model.
The feasibility study will be commissioned in 2020 and should be finished within the year. We will then have an “oven ready” project to take to Government which will enable us to lobby much more effectively.
CRIL would like to thank all councils who have supported this important stage of our journey.