{"id":12904,"date":"2016-06-04T13:03:29","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T12:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=12904"},"modified":"2016-06-04T13:03:29","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T12:03:29","slug":"heritage-and-community-rail-related-tourism-winners-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=12904","title":{"rendered":"Heritage and community rail-related tourism winners announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>The winners of million-pound tourism competition to boost rail-related tourism across Britain have been announced with prizes ranging from \u00a325k to \u00a375K.<\/h3>\n<p>The Department for Transport writes:<\/p>\n<p>\u2018A host of innovative projects to boost rail-related tourism have been announced in a million pound competition, funded by the UK government.<\/p>\n<p>The projects, based across England, Wales and Scotland, will create great new opportunities for UK and overseas tourists to enjoy the hidden gems of the country\u2019s heritage and community railways.<\/p>\n<p>Examples of the innovative projects funded by the competition include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>extending the heritage line from Chinnor to its former terminus at Princes Risborough station<\/li>\n<li>expanding the luxury Pullman services on the North Yorkshire moors, and adapting them for wheelchair users in Sussex<\/li>\n<li>developing a new \u2018velorail\u2019 in Kidwelly, creating a new tourist attraction, giving visitors the chance to drive a train by pedal power<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Rail Minister Claire Perry said: \u2018We want to show the best of British to our visitors, and heritage and community railways are part of that package.\u00a0 Thanks to this competition, 17 railways organisations right across Britain will be able to invest in promoting and boosting what they have to offer to visitors.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The competition offers grants to rail operators for innovative ideas and trials and is aimed particularly at heritage railways and community rail partnerships. It hopes to encourage more tourists and make it easier to explore the UK by rail.<\/p>\n<p>The competition has generated 17 winners, who will receive grants ranging from \u00a325,000 to \u00a375,000 to develop their ideas. It is part of the government\u2019s 5-point plan to boost tourism across the UK.<\/p>\n<p>Tourism and Heritage Minister David Evennett said: \u2018We want more tourists to experience the hidden gems the whole of the UK has to offer.\u00a0 Heritage and community railways are important local attractions, and these projects will help support our railway history and promote it to visitors from home and abroad.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Deirdre Wells OBE, the Chief Executive of UK Inbound, said: \u2018It was a privilege to be involved with his competition. Heritage and community rail plays a vital role in our vibrant and often quirky tourism industry.\u00a0 We want to do all we can to encourage more of the 36 million annual inbound visitors to the UK to explore more of our beautiful country by rail.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Judges for the competition included Mark Garnier MP, Lord Faulkner; Deirdre Wells OBE and Sir William McAlpine.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/rail-tourism-winners-announced\">See the list of winners<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The winners of million-pound tourism competition to boost rail-related tourism across Britain have been announced with prizes ranging from \u00a325k to \u00a375K. The Department for Transport writes: \u2018A host of innovative projects to boost rail-related tourism have been announced in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=12904\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12905,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12904\/revisions\/12905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}