Severn Valley Railway's £2.5 million target is on track
Fundraisers behind ambitious plans to redevelop a historic railway say they are hopeful of hitting the £2.5 million target - despite only having two months left to do it.
The Severn Valley Railway’s share offer programme, launched late last year to fund its conservation and redevelopment of Bridgnorth Station, hit £1.5 million this week.
But it must hit £2.5 million in the next eight weeks to allow the project to get off the ground.
The share offer proceeds are destined to provide much-improved visitor facilities at the station, including a new refreshment room in the style of an early 20th century Great Western Railway building, and key works to enhance the existing station, built in 1862.
Tony Bending, long-standing volunteer at the SVR said: “Although the end of the share offer period is now only two months away and we have £1 million to raise, we are still hopeful of achieving our target.
“We’ve had enormous interest in what we are doing with more than 3,000 web enquiries, so we think there is still more to come.
"It’s not too late to apply for a share offer pack on our website or by giving us a call and we’d also like to remind everyone that with the shares come some generous shareholder travel benefits.”
David Postle, long-time SVR volunteer and lead of the Bridgnorth Project Team added: “This station was built in 1862 to serve an important market town where revenue from goods traffic, particularly that serving the local agricultural community, exceeded that from passengers.
"It was not built to accommodate anything like the 250,000 visitors that are now seen on the current Severn Valley Railway each year.
“Modernising the infrastructure enables us to protect and conserve this unique piece of living history for future generations. That is why reaching our share offer target of £2.5 million is so important to us and we are conscious that time is now tight."
