We announced at our Annual General Meeting in June 2024 that we met the deadline and submitted our highly detailed National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) Stage One application. The application was completed along with our strategic application partners; The Swindon and Cricklade Railway, and our planned home for main line running The Yeovil Railway Centre.
The board thanks all our members that assisted with the funding of the Stage One application.
Unfortunately, we have been advised that our stage one bid has been rejected on the basis that the proposed programme, planned within the constraints of the NLHF’s guidelines, would, in their opinion, take much longer and cost considerably more. This would place the long term sustainability of the project at risk. The bottom line was that the substantial cost of our project, together with its complexity and inherent high risk, did not represent value for the NLHF.
Whilst we can’t go forward with this application the NLHF has stated they would be happy to offer us advice with a smaller, less complex and lower risk project. We are therefore already in discussion with the NLHF regarding the viability of a 2nd application that, alongside the engineering work, would place an emphasis on community engagement, young people, skills development, apprenticeships and diversity. The NLHF recognised the quality and detail of our application and submitting a scaled down and less complex application should not incur much additional cost.
Whilst the outcome is of course disappointing, the vast amount of work and content that was completed and necessary for the bid is just as relevant and necessary for the project going forwards and puts us in a stronger position than we were prior to making the bid.
The board is currently reviewing the future structure, personnel and options for the project and initiating discussions with both existing and potential new strategic partners.
We aim to provide more details of the strategic plan for the future and progress on engineering in the next issue of the members magazine The Packet. We will also confirm if our follow up conversations with the NLHF have been constructive and will result in us pursuing a 2nd application. Our initial EOI was rejected, and we were invited to make some changes and resubmit, which led to a pass at that stage.
Whilst the outcome is of course disappointing, we reiterate that the work, content and involvement of our strategic partners within the application is hugely beneficial to the project and the current board remain committed to the aim of recreating General Steam Navigation to her original as-built condition complete with air smooth casing and Bulleid’s unique patented chain driven valve gear.
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Members of the General Steam Navigation Locomotive Restoration have been receiving their copies of issue 13 of the Packet in the last few days. F
ed to unveil some of the front cladding with fitted lamp irons at the AGM in March. The cladding had been produced in order to give the locomotive her face and the start of the outline unique to an original condition Merchant Navy. To create the look some wooden frame extensions were fabricated in order to temporarily fit the new cladding. The cladding had been completed in time for the AGM but with the Covid-19 lock down the Society have been unable to send someone down to collect the finished project. Until the big unveiling the completed cladding will be kept under wraps. The Society would just like to thank Leaky Finders for there hard work constructing the cladding in record time.
The Society was able to acquire a new original electric headlight for the locomotive. At this point the Society now has 5 brass lamps and 1 steel one. The Society has also agreed a price for a Smiths speedometer axle box generator and a cut-off indictor plate for the steam reverser which we will be collecting later in the year.