Canal group wants help to build new Derby cycleway
Published: 2009-09-01 09:36:21
A heritage group that wants to build a new cycleway for Derbyshire is calling for help from businesses after its plans were hit by the credit crunch. (Sourced from Derby Telegraph.)
The Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust wants to build the track, at a cost of between £700,000 and £1m, along the route of the former waterway.
If planning permission is granted for the £40m-£60m canal project, it would become the waterway's towpath. But now the credit crunch has left the trust struggling for initial cash to help it unlock a £42,500 grant from Derby City Partnership to cost and design the path. Chairman Rob Hartley said the trust needed to show its intent by raising, or "match-funding", £17,000 towards the project itself.
He said that two property developers planning to build on intact parts of the canal, at Draycott and Spondon, had been expected to provide some cash but that the downturn in the real estate markets meant this had been withdrawn.
