Nuclear grant helps fund Bala Lake application

A £36,725 grant from Nuclear Restoration Services has enabled the Bala Lake Railway to submit a revised application for its long-anticipated extension into Bala itself.

The line’s application to extend three quarters of a mile from its current Peny-Bont terminus to a new station adjacent to Bala’s high street was turned down by the Snowdonia National Park Authority in April 2023, primarily over concerns about increased phosphate levels in the River Dee, as well as the impact the extension and associated works would have on the local environment and roads.

Addressing these concerns and organising new surveys for the revised planning application has cost approximately £120,000, much of which has been raised through private donations. However, the five-figure sum from NRS – formerly Magnox Ltd, the company decommissioning Trawsfynydd nuclear power station – has covered a shortfall in funds for the final specialist reports needed to complete the new application before the submission deadline. The new planning application was submitted on March 27 and the BLR hopes to have a decision by early summer.

BLR Trust chairman Julian Birley said: “This support from NRS really cannot be underestimated. Our supporters had given their all, but additional surveys and reports still had to be done and the costs were not inconsiderable. Without this final grant the whole project really was close to foundering, and ten years’ of work and a huge amount of generously donated money would be completely wasted.

“While nothing is ever certain until the ink is dry on the paper, we are cautiously hopeful that this time we will succeed. We have given it our all!”