Music mogul Pete Waterman joins appeal to save Severn Valley Railway

Well-known music mogul and railway-enthusiast Pete Waterman has backed a £1.5m campaign to save a much-loved Midlands attraction.

Severn Valley Railway says its coal and electricity bills have skyrocketed to nearly £500,000 in a year - wiping out the charity's contingency fund.

It has now appealing for help in raising money to stay up and running.

Supporting the appeal, Mr Waterman said the heritage railway is "too precious to lose".

The Severn Valley Railway, which runs trains between Bridgnorth and Kidderminster, has said visitor numbers have dropped by a third in the last 12 months.

The record producer, who now lives in Coventry, said: "Heritage railways are great for the community, the crisis they are in now is not just the money, it's the volunteers.

"Since Covid-19, we've lost a serious amount of volunteers and you can't run without volunteers.

"The appeal is to get out there and support them, because if you don't you could lose them, we can't lose the Valley - it's too precious."

In a bid to cut costs, the tourist attraction's bosses announced redundancies and other measures such as running temporarily reduced services in February.

It is not the first time the line has faced financial pressures in recent years.

In December 2021 it was awarded nearly £1m by the government following "huge losses" during the pandemic.

Jonathan Dunster, managing director of Severn Valley Railway said: "We've normally held a cash reserve of between £1.2m and £1.5m, which for an organisation like this with a lot of old infrastructure to maintain is really quite important."

"To now be in a position where we almost have no resilience is quite concerning for the long-term future, we need to rebuild that back up."

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