‘Heartbreak’ as railway forced to cut 32 jobs over losses due to Covid-19:

TOURISM OPERATOR HAD PROJECTED TO TAKE IN £6M THIS YEAR BUT THIS HAS BEEN DOWNGRADED TO £1M

FFESTINIOG and Welsh Highland Railways have been forced into the “heartbreaking” decision to make more than 30 staff redundant after a year destroyed by the pandemic.

The lines are a major tourist attraction and employer in Gwynedd – a £25m a year contribution to the economy and employing 97 staff at the start of 2020.

But like many tourism operators their year has been wrecked by Covid19.

They had projected to take in £6m this year but this has been downgraded to just £1m.

In September they launched a survival plan and warned staff about redundancies.

Now they have confirmed 32 workers have been made redundant and total staff numbers are now 60 as other staff have left the organisation.

Paul Lewin, director and general manager, said: “I’ve been helping build up these teams for 20 years, we’ve gone from a £2m to a £6m a year operation in that time.

“Seeing that damaged and jobs being lost is heartbreaking.

“I don’t think many tourism operators have been hit as hard.”

They have closed the commercial side of the operation, but essential maintenance – costing around £200,000 a month – has to continue.

Part of the reason they have been able to keep on a core team is due to the support they have received.

Members have donated an incredible £550,000, plus £250K from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and £100K from the Welsh Government’s Economic Resilience fund.

Some workers have also been placed on the UK Government’s furlough scheme but many have to keep working to ensure a safe restart in 2021.

Mr Lewin said: “If we don’t carry on essential maintenance of the carriages, the tracks, the bridges, we can’t reopen next year.

“We can’t just shut everything down - we need a team of around 50 to continue that work.

“When people ride on our trains they expect them to be safe and that is why maintenance must continue.

“We expect spring [2021] to still be difficult but are pinning our hopes on summer and autumn returning to some sort of normality.”