Bridgnorth Cliff Railway boss expresses 'huge relief' the attraction will reopen soon

On Thursday, Bridgnorth Town Council confirmed they had completed repairs to a damaged retaining wall that saw the Cliff Railway close on health and safety grounds before Christmas.

The town council has now ordered the contractor to continue the wall repairs further along Castle Walk outside of the Cliff Railway site, in works that are expected to last six weeks.

Once complete, the town council said they will be able to give the green light for the Bridgnorth Cliff Railway to reopen.

Owner of the market town's funicular railway, which has been operating since 1892, Malvern Tipping said: "It is now looking that the cliff railway shall be able to re-open soon, which is a huge relief to us, because a few months ago it looked as though it would never run again.

"I just cannot wait to see it up and running again and I know that many of our former members of staff are biting at the bit to resume their old jobs.

"Many of them have been calling regularly to have a chat and cup of tea with our manager and engineer.

"Meanwhile we do need to open sooner rather than later so as to capture our peak season which is July and August. I shall now be writing to the Town council to ascertain more."

He added: "Very clearly, it would have been far better if we had opened by Easter. We have lost all of the revenues from the last two months.

"However, if we can generate enough traffic over the summer months, that should see us though to next year. Though we have to bear in mind that we have very expensive upgrades which we shall want to undertake to the cliff railway."

He said these upgrades, including new electrical control system and additional back-up braking will be carried out during the winter.