The Great Central Railway has been making steady progress on its plans for Reunification. They have now been given the go-ahead from the council to build 500 metres of new line, which will bring the section in Leicestershire and the other in Nottinghamshire back together.

Visitors recently took a guided tour of the missing section in April, the area of which will now be under preparatory work.

Donations from sponsors around the world have already been used to construct three parts of the project; however, they were reliant on planning consent for their next part.

The process of gaining this planning permission from Charnwood Borough Council has taken eleven months, but it means that the plan can now resume.

The Great Central, originally opened in 1899, was closed as part of the ‘Beeching railway cuts’ in the 1960s, which caused a section of the line to be destroyed.

Over the last decade, preservationists have built a new bridge, refurbished one, and replaced another.

£2.5 million has been raised to help them continue the work on the structures. A quarter of a million pounds is required to see ground investigation surveys to support the final design work for the reuniification.

Donations are encouraged on their website.

“This is a really important moment for the Reunification project. We’re grateful to Charnwood Borough Council for carefully working through our application. I’d also like to say thank you to our volunteer project manager Larry Greenwell and planning consultant Bob Woollard for diligently preparing our application and the dozens of reports which went with it. It has been a major piece of work which in itself has cost a six figure sum. Now we are masters of our own destiny as we press ahead with our ambitious plans.”

Great Central Railway General Manager Malcolm Holmes