The Furness Railway Trust is ruling out any development on land in Haverthwaite - including land adjoining the parish Church.
Work is underway to assess the potential of the Trust's plans to create a museum and workshop with associated visitor facilities.
There is more about the background and history of this project here.
This new phase of the work by locally-based professional consultants will continue site assessments to make a final recommendation to the Trust as to which site would be the best option for the museum and workshop. Now that the land near the church has been ruled out, and all other possibilities in Haverthwaite exhausted, the Trust is looking to other solutions elsewhere.
Full and detailed consultation will be carried out throughout this process with the local communities most likely to be affected by this development. The views of local people will be fed into the further exploratory engineering work and traffic and transport reviews that will also be carried out, and the findings of these studies will be fed back to the local community. You don't have to wait to be asked - click here to log your comments now!
FRT Chairman Tim Owen explained the decision to drop what had been the preferred option site next to the Church. "We have always said that we had no wish to undertake any development that could not be supported by the local community. Our consultant Kate Willard, who led the public meeting on September the 17th on our behalf, reported back the feeling and detailed concerns of that meeting and we have now made the clear decision not to consider any form of development on that field. We remain committed to consulting with the community and working with them to reach a positive solution to finding an appropriate site - and sincerely hope that this decision shows our real commitment to listening and acting on what we hear. We would like to thank all those in the local area who have contributed to this process so far."
There continues to be an urgent need to bring the Trust's valuable collection under cover on a single site and to allow further restoration projects to take place; there is no room at the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway for such a facility.
The Trust has hired Witherslack -based Kate Willard Ltd, working with a team including local engineers and transport experts Bleasdale Wand of Ulverston and Brian Campbell Associates of Spark Bridge and architects Sheppard Robson of Manchester to undertake this work .
Previously, as CEO of Rural Regeneration Cumbria, Kate Willard led the development of a number of major regeneration projects across rural Cumbria. Along with the FRT, she is committed to ensuring that this exciting project develops to create a 'win/win' result for the Trust, other stakeholders and local residents alike.
This project has also been recognised by the Lake District National Park Authority as one of the key projects in the Windermere Waterfront Strategy.
At the outset of this phase of hte project, Tim Owen, Chairman of the FRT, said "We were asked to flesh things out at last December's public meeting and report back. Kate and her team will do one better than that, because they will involve the local community at the heart of developing these ideas." And Kate Willard added "This will be a genuine consultation where what is said will have a real bearing on the outcome. We want local people to know that their views really do count."
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