So, we made it. No, more than that. We smashed it. The target was £65,197 and between us we reached £75,562! Moreover we’ve grown our amazing team of volunteers, made new connections and built an unstoppable wave of enthusiasm allowing us to connect with our neighbours to make a difference.
Over the past months we’ve been operating in hope as much as expectation so to steam across the finish line with fuel in the tank is really something else. Together, we made it happen, all 938 of us. The experience has been both empowering and humbling for so many of us who have become involved.
So what do the funds allow us to do and what happens next?
We’re currently drawing up the brief for the feasibility study and working with all the involved organisations, like Network Rail and Southwark Council, so that make sure we cover all their needs as well as our own allowing the study to give us the fullest picture possible of the benefits, cost, timeframe, sustainability, design, structure and engineering required to build the thing. This will then go out to tender so that we can find a group with the experience to deliver in a way that includes us in the process.
This may take some time so we may go a bit quiet as we work up to this next stage. We hope to have something meaningful to share by next spring.
We will be hosting some events around this time and what we learn from these will be feed into the feasibility study. We will post more details as to the where and the when as we have them.
Lastly, it bears repeating that this is all quite a trip. It’s quite incredible we have reached this stage but there’s a lot more to be done so please continue to stay in touch. The Coal Line belongs to all of us.
