On 31 March, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) formally re-opened the Bala flood defences, having completed its eighteen-month upgrade.
As part of the upgrade works, NRW carried out all the civil engineering work for the formation required for the Bala Lake Railway, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last year, to lay rails once planning permission is granted for its planned extension. The formation for 360m of the 1200m extension is now complete.
The Railway published its plan to extend into Bala town centre in August 2021, and a year ago, completed the purchase of the land it needed.
Julian Birley, Chair of the Bala Lake Railway Trust, said, “NRW have done the most fantastic job even filling the trough with the appropriate size ballast. Leading off the back of the defences the gradient has begun for the embankment that will take the railway down to the level of the new station.
“This is huge progress and very positive news.”
Birley goes on to point out that the Rail now faces its next major hurdle, as its application for permission for the extension goes before the planning committee of the Snowdonia National Park on 19 April. with a recommendation that it be refused. The grounds for this are the additional phosphate levels in the River Dee Special Area of Conservation which fails to meet its targets further downstream between Corwen and Chirk. As this project is within the River Dee catchment upstream of Corwen, any additional visitors the railway will attract to Bala is likely (through increased effluent) to raise the phosphate levels in the water.
Birley comments, “So while Visit Wales are encouraging tourists to come to Wales there should be a caveat saying Come to Wales but don't come to the Dee Valley.
“With absolutely unprecedented support for the project, it is very worrying that those that make the decisions are hiding behind legislation that has nothing to do with the actual extension of the railway.
“Nine years in the making and £1.4m raised to get to this point, we are not going to let bureaucracy get in the way of something that is known to work and support local businesses.”
He urges those who feel strongly about this to show their support by writing to the planning committee quoting planning application NP5/53/576 this link.
I actually have just reread this and checked the date to ensure that it was not a April fools joke, but no it’s not.
The real problem that is being faced is that a solution needs to be found to cut the phosphorus levels in the river and not the much needed money that extra tourists bring to the area.
The Environment Agency take on how to prevent this is to ensure that proper dossing of the waste water leaving the treatment plant be under taken with aluminium or other suitable approved chemicals.
Maybe the real underlying problem is that the local area’s effluent in not being treated correctly by the waste water plant and it’s possible that raw effluent is being discharged into the river.
The other source of phosphorus is the run off of raw effluent produced by the local farms and its animals, it’s common to see farmers ‘muck spreading’ raw effluent onto fields, it rains and the phosphorus runs off and into the streams and rivers.
USUAL CRY FROM BEAN COUNTERS
SOME WANT THE VOTE BUT WONT TO SPEND MONEY
LIKE TOP SIDE THEY WANT TO KEEP INVESTERS THERE
HO HUM
This is a completely absurd objection from the Snowdonia Park Authority. Pursuing their flawed logic to the extreme they would be seeking to shut down tourist related businesses in the River Dee catchment area so that fewer “polluting” people want to come to the area.
what a crazy situation, does this mean no more house building in the Bala area? Tourists are being actively encouraged to visit Wales but just don’t use toilets if you do. Just plain crazy. Might be a good idea for the water company to invest in new / more sewerage works.