Railway's plight features on BBC Radio Wales

If it can put together a compelling enough case for external help with its current financial plight, its “very likely” that Llangollen Railway could be running again later this year.

That was the positive message from railway Trust chairman Peter Edwards when he was interviewed on BBC Radio Wales yesterday morning.

As llanblogger has been reporting, on March 1 the board of Llangollen Railway PLC asked its bank to call in receivers after it became insolvent to the tune of about £350,000 and could not legally continue trading.

A firm of liquidators was called in which immediately began the process of selling off the assets of the world-famous heritage attraction.

However, the railway's Trust, which is quite separate from the PLC and completely solvent, immediately declared its intention of taking over the running of the line and buying up as many of the assets as it could afford.

This rescue plan is dependent upon grants from outside bodies, such as Denbighshire County Council or the Welsh Government, and also the amount raised by a public appeal which yesterday stood at a healthy £43,000-plus.

In his radio interview with reporter Rob Thomas the Trust board’s new chairman Peter Edwards explained that the receivership had resulted from the PLC losing a “significant” amount of money over the past three years, with closure of the line due to Covid-19 coming as “the final straw”.

Liabilities, he said, were in excess of £250,000 but the Trust board was putting together a proposal to re-focus the railway’s vision and put it into a position where it could ask for financial assistance from external sources.

Asked by the reporter if the railway was likely to be carrying passengers again this year, Mr Edwards said: “Depending on us being able to put together a compelling enough proposal, later on this year it is very likely we will be running trains.”

It has been estimated that Llangollen Railway contributes as much as £8m to the wider tourism economy.

And Chris Frost, chair of North Wales Tourism, said the whole of the town’s economy – it’s shops, restaurants and other businesses - relies upon it.

He added: “It is imperative that strategic partners come together and find the funding to keep Llangollen Railway on track.”

The railway has around 200 volunteers and Aled Rhys, who gives his time as an unpaid signalman, told the interviewer that when they heard about the line’s financial crisis many of the volunteers were in tears.

But he added: “We have faith in the Trust board and we’re sure they will turn things around.”

·     * You can listen to the BBC Radio Wales sequence on: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000tchp

"Fantastic" response reported to railway's rescue appeal

The public appeal to shunt Llangollen Railway out of its deep financial trouble has shown a big upsurge in support.

On March 1 the board of Llangollen Railway PLC asked its bank to call in receivers after it became insolvent to the tune of about £350,000 and could not legally continue trading.

A firm of liquidators was called in which immediately began the process of selling off the assets of the world-famous heritage attraction.

However, the railway's Trust, which is quite separate from the PLC and completely solvent, declared its intention of taking over the running of the line and buying up as many of the assets as it could afford.

Since the crisis was revealed at the start of the month scores of people have been contributing to a public appeal which had raised £10,000 in a matter of days.

The railway's still-active Facebook page posted an update on donations yesterday and describes the public response as "fantastic".

It says: "Fantastic to see our appeal to raise funds for the LR Trust's efforts to rescue the railway topped £40K this morning with nearly 1,000 donations. 

"Thank you to everyone for their fantastic support but let's keep going! https://llangollenrailway.enthuse.com/cf/covid-19-appeal

The donations button figure at 1.15pm on Saturday was almost £41,000, which was up from £24,000 in early March with pledges of financial support still coming in.

llanblogger reader spots singing star sailing the canal

* Michael Ball gives the thumbs-up to Phil Meyer as he glides by on the canal.

Sharp-eyed llanblogger reader Phil Meyers snapped this picture of singing star Michael Ball aboard a narrow boat heading along the Llangollen Canal yesterday (Friday) afternoon.

Giving Phil the thumbs-up, he told him he was on his way to film for a TV show at the world famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

Michael made his debut at Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod - where Phil has been a long-standing volunteer - back in 2004. 

Welsh Government unveils its new transport plan

A pledge to increase the number of people using public transport, walking and cycling sits at the heart of the Welsh Governments new Transport Strategy.

The new strategy – the result of a major consultation over the last year - aims to encourage people out of their cars, with a new target for 45% of journeys to be by sustainable means across Wales by 2045, up from 32% currently.

Llwybr Newydd – New Path commits to reducing transport emissions as part of efforts to tackle the climate emergency. Currently transport makes up 17% of Wales’ carbon emissions.

The strategy comes as more than £210m is being invested across Wales in 2021/22.

More than £115m is being allocated to local authorities to spend on transport projects that will support the commitments in Llwybr Newydd.

Another investment will see £25m to support the Wrexham Gateway project, creating better connected bus and rail transport and redevelopment of the area around Wrexham General.

During 2021/22 £75m will be spent on active travel, an increase from £5m at the start of this Welsh Government term.

Ken Skates, Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales, said: “Llwybr Newydd is a landmark moment and will help to fundamentally re-shape transport in Wales.  It will encourage new and greener infrastructure and change the way we make decisions about investment in transport right across the country.

“The climate emergency is very real and it means we must take urgent action to reduce the carbon footprint of the transport system in Wales. That’s why we have set bold new targets for more sustainable transport forms like walking, cycling and public transport.  This will help reduce reliance on the car by making the sustainable alternatives more appealing.

“Doing this means investing in high quality public transport alternatives and that’s why we are providing more than £210m in transport schemes that will contribute to ambitions in our new plan.

“We’ve made a good start, with major investment in things like Metro, but we know we need to go further and faster and Llwybr Newydd sets us on the path to a transport system genuinely fit for future generations.”

As part of the £115m investment being announced in local authority funding, nearly £47m is being spent on active travel schemes, helping develop routes that support walking and cycling.

A further £6.4m is being committed through the Safe Routes in Communities fund, with a particular focus on school routes. Another £20m will be confirmed through the Active Travel Fund later in the financial year, taking the total dedicated active travel spend to £75m – up from £5m at the start of this Senedd term.

The Road Safety Capital grant is worth £5.1m and will include funding to support training initiatives to improve safety for cyclists.

The Local Transport Fund will commit £28.9m to projects to support Wales’ transport network. Applications were assessed against the sustainable transport hierarchy set out in Llwybr Newydd, with emphasis given to improving public transport reliability and journey times.

A further £9m has been allocated to local authorities to move to zero emission vehicles and to roll-out charging infrastructure. Next week the Welsh Government will also publish its Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy to boost confidence for drivers wanting to use electric vehicles.

The Roads Resilience Fund, worth £17.4m, is in place to address disruptions caused by severe weather to the highway network, especially to the public transport network.

Another £3m is being committed to the North Wales Metro, helping to create an accessible, integrated transport system for people in the region.

Latest Citizens Advice column

Here is the March column from Denbighshire Citizens Advice: 

Q: We’ve had a lot of issues receiving our post recently and haven’t seen our usual postie around in a little while. I know that a couple of Christmas cards I sent in December still haven’t been received. And some of my neighbours who are shielding, and completely reliant on shopping online, have had some of their deliveries delayed too. Is there anything I can do? 

A: You’re not alone, we know posties are currently working very hard, but we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of people coming to us for advice about post and parcel issues. 

Letters 

If you haven’t received any letters in your post, think about if there’s anything you were expecting like bills that might be due soon.  If you’re missing a bill you could check your account online to see how else you could pay. Lots of businesses offer online chat, email and phone as a way to contact them. 

If you’re worried about missing letters about any benefits you receive you can contact the Department for Work and Pensions on the number given on any previous letters you’ve had. If you have questions about Universal Credit and don’t have a digital account, you can call the Universal Credit helpline on 0800 328 5644. 

You can check Royal Mail’s website for updates on areas which may be experiencing delays. 

Parcels

If you bought something from a business to be delivered, it’s the seller’s responsibility to make sure the item is delivered to you. 

If the seller used a courier, they should chase the courier to find out what’s happened to your order - it’s not your responsibility. 

Check the delivery address you gave the seller. Then contact them and ask where your order is. 

If the seller claims they've delivered it or don't know where it is, you can ask for a redelivery. You might be able to get a refund in some circumstances where the delivery time was essential and you let the trader know ahead of time.  

Under the Consumer Rights Act, you can ask the seller to deliver the item again if the item wasn’t delivered either:

●     by an agreed date

●     within a reasonable time - usually within 30 days.

If the new delivery fails to come within a reasonable time you can ask the trader for a refund.

If you ordered something from a private seller or if you think a seller had broken the law by refusing to deliver an item, you can contact the Citizens Advice consumer helpline for help.

Latest vaccination update from Llangollen Health Centre

Llangollen Health Centre has this evening issued its latest Covid vaccination update, which says:

"Tomorrow we will start contacting patients in Group 7 (those aged 60 – 64 years) and the first set of patients who are due their second dose (those who had their first dose week commencing 4th January). We have sufficient appointment capacity and vaccine supply to complete vaccinating everyone in these two groups by the end of Saturday 27th March.;

"Issues with vaccine supply have been in the news again recently. It is unclear at the moment how this will affect us and the target to vaccinate groups 1-9 by mid-April but we have been assured that the health board is working hard to mitigate this. 

"We have been told that the supply for second doses is secure so please don’t worry if you are due your second dose over the next few weeks.

"I will give a further update next week. Tessa, Practice Manager."

Welsh Government updates its Covid controls

The Welsh Government has today updated its Coronavirus Control Plan, setting out how and when more people and businesses will be able to resume their activities in the safest possible way.

In December, the First Minister published the Coronavirus Control Plan: Alert Levels for Wales, which set out how the national measures would be introduced in a more predictable way based on a framework of four alert levels.

The plan has been updated to take account of Wales’ vaccination programme and the emergence of the highly-infectious Kent variant of the virus, which is now dominant throughout Wales. 

It also reflects the risk of new, potentially vaccine-resistant variants of coronavirus being imported into Wales from people holidaying and travelling overseas.

The new plan will support the Welsh Government to continue to relax restrictions while the public health situation continues to remain positive – rates have fallen significantly across Wales thanks to all the hard work and sacrifices made by people during the winter months. It sets out a range of indictors the Welsh Government will analyse and assess, alongside professional expert advice and intelligence from local partners, to determine how restrictions are relaxed.

But if there are strong signs of a growth in infections, it also sets out how the relaxations may need to be slowed, paused or in the worst case, reversed.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said: “The coronavirus pandemic has turned all our lives upside down. Over the last 12 months, everyone in Wales has made sacrifices to help protect themselves and their families and help bring coronavirus under control.

“This is a cruel virus – far too many families have lost loved ones, and unfortunately, we know that many more people will fall seriously ill and sadly will die before the pandemic is over. But the way people and communities have pulled together across Wales, and followed the rules, has undoubtedly saved many more lives. 

“We are now entering a critical phase in the pandemic. We can see light at the end of the tunnel as we approach the end of a long and hard second wave, thanks to the amazing efforts of scientists and researchers across the world to develop effective vaccines. Our amazing vaccination programme has made vaccines available to people in the most at-risk groups at incredible speed.”

More than 1.2m people in Wales have said yes to vaccination and have received their first dose; more than 300,000 people have completed the two-dose course. The aim is to offer the first nine priority groups of adults vaccination by mid-April and all eligible adults a first dose by the end of July.

Early results about the effectiveness of the vaccines are promising in terms of their effect in both preventing severe disease and transmission. But, until the vaccination programme is more advanced, a large proportion of the population will remain vulnerable to infection.

The uncertainty and unpredictability of the Kent variant means that Ministers are adopting a more cautious approach to coming out of lockdown.

The updated Coronavirus Control Plan sets out the following phased steps for moving from alert level four into alert level three:

From Monday 22 March:

• First phased opening of non-essential retail – restrictions on the sale of items will be lifted for shops, which are currently open;
• Garden centres re-open.

From Saturday 27 March:

Next week, Ministers will confirm if the conditions allow for the following relaxations to come into force:

• Stay local requirement lifted, moving Wales into alert level three;
• First phased opening of the tourism sector as self-contained accommodation opens;
• Organised outdoor children’s activities resume;
• Limited opening of outdoor areas of some historic places and gardens;
• Libraries re-open.

1 April review cycle

From 12 April (if conditions allow):

• Full return to schools, colleges and other education;
• All shops to open;
• Close contact services to open.

22 April review cycle

The following areas will be considered as part of the 22 April review, if the public health situation continues to remain positive and vaccination rates continue to increase: 

• Gyms, leisure and fitness facilities;
• Outdoor attractions;
• Outdoor hospitality;
• Weddings;
• Community centres;
• Organised activities (30 outdoors, 15 indoors);
• Extended households.

Mark Drakeford added: “Just as we are rolling out vaccination, we are facing a very different virus in Wales today. The highly-infectious Kent variant is now dominant in all parts of Wales.

“This means the protective behaviours we have all learned to adopt are even more important than ever – getting tested and isolating when we have symptoms; keeping our distance from others; not mixing indoors; avoiding crowds; washing our hands regularly and wearing face coverings.

“The pandemic is not over – spring and summer give us hope of more freedom, as rates of infection fall and more people are vaccinated.

“But we must be need to careful – we can’t rush the process of relaxing restrictions and risk a resurgence of the virus.

"We will revisit this plan after vaccination has been offered to all eligible adults – currently scheduled for the end of July – when more evidence and data about its impact will be available."