Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 January 2008 12:49:07
There was good news for the people at the top end of our valley today.
The Pontypool & Blaenavon Railway have been awarded £1million (must be said in a Dr Evil way to get full effect) to extend the line to the site of the Blaenavon High Level Station. This is a great leap forward and a welcome addition to steam preservation railway. They are hoping that this will help to boost tourism into the vallies.
Blaenavon already has the Big Pit - a chance to sample life underground in a former deep coal mine. This attracts about 250,000 visitors a year to the town. Yet there is an underlying problem to this - very few actually visit Blaenavon itself.
A few years ago Blaenavon was set on the road to reinvigeration by evolving into a Book Town. 2nd hand bookshops opened up and things seemed to move along well. Within 18 months things had returned to normal, shops had closed and visitors into the town had vanished. There are small signs of renewal but still few visitors.
I hope that this time there will be a permanent change in Blaenavon's fortunes. You never know the dream of connecting the town with Pontypool by rail may come off.