Blackpool's Tramtown museum getting ready to re-open to the public this Easter
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00:00This is Councillor Paul Gally, Volunteer Coordinator at Tram Town Blackpool, and what's happening here today?
00:11Thank you. Well, we've got a lot going on. We've got two weeks before we open to the public.
00:16We're turning the fitting shop at the old tram works into an exhibition hall for visitors to come and see some trams.
00:25They'll be able to sit on the tram behind me, this boat tram. They'll be able to see, walk around, see the different exhibits, the history of the tram system in Blackpool.
00:35And they'll be able to then enjoy, learn, and most of all, be able to contribute to saving the Blackpool tram system.
00:44And so if this doesn't happen, we will potentially lose the home of Blackpool Tram.
00:50So this is about building a business case, it's about providing education, and most of all, it's about giving an experience that people will want to come and enjoy.
00:59Proving why the heritage trams matter, and why the home of the Blackpool trams, in one of Blackpool's poorest walls, has to be preserved.
01:07Because not only will it regenerate the trams, it will generate lives, and it will regenerate the wider Bloomfield area.
01:14So this place really matters. So in the next two weeks, we're going to make the magic happen where we paint the floors, and we turn it into a visitor attraction where people can walk around and enjoy.
01:24So this is an important step in ensuring the heritage trams remain on display, but also that they can run on the promenade again eventually?
01:35Absolutely, yeah. Without a home, the trams with the Blackpool weather that we get on the Fylde Coast, we've seen it elsewhere, where trams are left outside, they'll soon be damaged, they'll soon start to rust and corrode, and you'll never use them again.
01:51So investing in the home of the trams is as important as investing in the trams themselves, so this will mean that the gutters are cleaned, the building is maintained,
02:00and it'll support the business case for the wider investment into the tram shed itself.
02:05And then that, hopefully in time, will allow us to recruit engineers, like you would see on a heritage railway, where you have a mixture of paid staff and volunteers repairing and maintaining.
02:15That will then allow us to see the trams running again as well, on a more regular basis with a bigger fleet.
02:22And what are the next steps in terms of funding?
02:26So the next steps here, so obviously we're open to the public, so it's £5 an adult, £2.50 a child.
02:32All those pennies really matter because they allow us to do maintenance, so whenever we have any storm damage we can replace a panel, we can clean the drains and so on, so that will allow us to tick over.
02:44It will also, though, prove our business case as to why this matters and why the Heritage Lottery Fund should invest in us, and a lot of work's been done on that already.
02:54It gives us data, and everybody when you're doing a funding bid loves data, it's evidence, so everybody that comes here is proving why this matters.
03:04And we know historically when we came to Britain, we had visitors from around the world, from Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, the United States, Eastern Europe, were really keen to see double-decker trams.
03:18There's only three places in the world that do it, Alexandra, Hong Kong and Blackpool, so we are unique, and tying all those things together gives us a bridge to support that bigger funding case.
03:31And then when we've delivered it, we know we'll be as good as the National Rail Centre is, and what it does for York, we can do that for Blackpool.
03:40When do you open to the public?
03:42We open in two weeks' time, so that is Easter, so it's Good Friday, we're open Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then after that we'll be open Saturdays, Mondays, and then we're going to extend that into Wednesdays and a little bit longer.
03:56So if anybody would like to come and help us, contact myself, if anyone would like to visit us, we've got a link, you can buy tickets or you can buy tickets on the door, and we'll be open 10am to 2pm every day on those days.