Friends of Williamson's Tunnels

.....News added on 22nd February 2001.....

· Local History Exhibition

The Radio Merseyside Charitable Trust are repeating last year's hugely successful Local History Exhibition at St. George's Hall in March 2001. The event will be open for two days - Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th March. All the local history groups will have stalls at the event, including ourselves. We will have some of our fundraising souvenirs for sale as well as lots of photos and information to browse through. Beware the queues! Thousands of people attended last year, but it's well worth it. Further details from the Radio Merseyside Charitable Trust: 0151 708 5500.

· Souterrains 2K2

In the last news update we reported that talks were under way for FoWT to host the prestigious international Souterrains conference in 2002. The deal is now done! and we are busy making arrangements for visitors from all over Europe to converge on Liverpool for several days of underground exploration in about 15 months' time. We are setting up a special web site on which we will be posting details of this exciting event..

· Smithdown Lane / Stables site

Revised plans for building on the Stables section of the central 'tunnels site' were submitted to the City Council by the developer in February. It appears that some parts of the old stables will be spared and converted into offices and other units. The main facade on Smithdown Lane will be demolished, however, to make way for more houses/flats.
At the time of writing, it appears that the long-delayed work on the renovation and adaptation of the two tunnels in the corner of the stable yard has yet to start in earnest. Supporters of the scheme have recently made mention of the 'triple deck' tunnel which runs under the site and to which we have often drawn attention. Their acknowledgement of this tunnel is encouraging and we hopefully interpret this as a signal that some of the tunnels under that site which do not figure in the developers plans may not be lost after all.

· Paddington / Williamson Student Village site

Whilst continuing to take FoWT members on tours of the tunnels under Paddington and the Mason Street house site (about 700 people so far), our preparations for further excavation at Paddington continue to take shape. The Student Village is now in the hands of new owners and our discussions with their representatives have been very positive.