Famous love locks to be given to campaign group

A council has confirmed it will hand over a town's famous love locks that were set to be removed from a bridge and melted down.

Derbyshire County Council is removing the locks from Bakewell's Weir Bridge so it can do maintenance work to the structure.

This caused an outcry among the thousands of people who have locks attached to the bridge, including in memory of loved ones.

But the council said it would now give the padlocks to the Save the Love Locks at Bakewell campaign, which intends to display them at a nearby stately home.

"We’ve been moved by the many personal stories and comments people have shared about the significance of the love locks," the council's highways team said in a statement on the campaign group's Facebook page.

"We will carefully remove the love locks from the bridge and give them to Mr Richard Young and other supporters of the Save the Love Locks Facebook group to plan a way forward for their display within the community.

"We do not want to stand in the way of the generous offer to display the existing love locks nearby and are pleased they've been able to find a new home."

The council said it had previously tried to find somewhere to relocate the locks but had been unable to.

The locks will now be relocated to Thornbridge Hall, after owner Emma Harrison was contacted by the campaign group.

She told the BBC: "I looked on the Facebook page and I saw how much it meant to everybody.

"I can't bear the thought that anyone would melt down all those memories and just throw them away effectively."

Love locks first started appearing on Weir Bridge in 2012, and the campaign group calculated 40,000 have been placed in total.

The council intends to change the design of the bridge so that people will not be able to attach locks to it in future.

It said this was necessary for public safety, as there had been reports of people injuring themselves on the locks.

It said it was hoping to remove the locks "string by string and section by section" so that they could be kept together and reinstated by the campaign group, and will confirm the arrangements with Mr Young over the coming weeks.

Mr Young said: "I am absolutely delighted with the outcome, I could not have wished for anything better."

Widower Mike Hall, who placed a lock on the bridge with his late wife Carol back in 2014, said he was "over the moon".

"For me this is like a little memorial stone," he said about his lock.

"Its value is nothing, but emotionally for me it's very valuable, and that's why I want to preserve it.

"You wouldn't just go and chuck people's gravestones away for the sake of progress."

Mr Hall said the process had been "tough for everyone".

"I'd like to thank all the team behind saving the locks, it's been hard work, especially Richard, who has been chipping away at it for years," he said.

"It wouldn't have got as far as it has without him."

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