Online vote gives boost for Mountsorrel Railway

The Mountsorrel Railway Project is to receive a valuable cash boost after being successful in an online election arranged by NatWest Bank's Community Force.

Nationally, over 5,800 community projects registered to take part and these were then voted for by the public, either online or by telephone, in an election that was sub-divided into regional competitions. To achieve success the Mountsorrel Railway had to compete with 45 other projects in the Burton/Loughborough area. The prize for the railway is an award of
£6,275 which is expected to be presented early in the New Year.

The online voting totals seemed to show the railway to be neck and neck with its nearest rival at the time votes closed. But, with phone votes taken into account the railway actually WON the Burton and Loughborough voting area by a good margin.

Things get even more impressive when you look where the Mountsorrel Railway came nationally, bearing in mind that it is a relatively small community group aiming to bring benefit to a small corner of Leicestershire without the benefit of a paid marketing and fund-raising team that some of the competing organisations can boast. In addition, some of the participating groups also aimed to bring benefit to a wider area and therefore had a larger pool of potential voters to tap into.

Project leader Steve Cramp was delighted with this news. "Nationally 5813 projects took part and over 366,000 votes were cast. To find that we came 47th nationally, well within the top 1% of all the projects, is simply astounding. I always knew that we had something very special here, but what I didn't quite appreciate was the scale of public support and strength of feeling for the project. Not only does this allow our track-laying to continue unhindered," said Steve, "but it raises the profile of the project both locally and further afield. Like so many community projects, we often find it an uphill battle to gain publicity and this kind of recognition is invaluable for raising the public's awareness of us. What makes the award so special is the knowledge that the public share our vision of bringing what we hope will be a much valued educational and recreational resource to our community."

The aim of the project is to relay just over a mile of railway from south of Swithland Reservoir to Bond Lane, Mountsorrel. When completed the branch line would become an additional attraction for the Great Central Railway, which would operate trains from Rothley along the branch to Mountsorrel. The restored railway branch line will form a working linear museum that will allow forgotten scenes from our industrial past to be recreated for today's generations to experience and learn from. So far over 500 metres of track have been re-laid. The grant from NatWest Community Force will enable track-laying to progress rapidly towards Wood Lane, Mountsorrel.