The Queen's Pier Story .. .. ..

A Message from Our Chairman, Mr. F W. Hodgson.

Open Day July 2001.

Our latest Open Day was held in brilliant weather and over 3000 supporters took advantage of the day to walk on "their" Pier. MHKs and MLCs were noted in the crowd and even H.E. the Lt. Governor paid a Private visit. Sales of Balloons was brisk with just short of 500 entries in the Race. They were launched by Home Office Minister, and strong Supporter of the Pier, Hon. Allan Bell after a rousing and impassioned speech of welcome to our visitors. From returns to date the Balloons have spread our message over to Northern England and your committee will decide the eventual winner at their forthcoming Meeting. In addition to the monetary prize(s) for the longest distance, it has also been agreed that ALL those returning a ticket will get one years membership of the "Friends". Special mention must be made of the substantial donation from the Ladies of Cummal Mooar who sold Strawberry Teas during the Afternoon.

Campaign Progress.

Obviously things are relatively quiet at the moment as we await the Production of the 'Final Report' commissioned by Tynwald in April. We can take some comfort from the fact that we have at last killed off the daft idea to cut the Pier in half following our excellent pressure on Tynwald last Autumn in actually getting the Department of Transport to publish its proposals after a delay of over Four Years. Thanks to all who turned out on those bitterly cold mornings and helped get the message across. D of T now want to hand the whole thing over to Manx National Heritage and the awaited reported is for costings and budgetary assessment to enable this to be done. This report has to be before Tynwald in October, i.e. BEFORE the Election, so there can be little opportunity for passing the Buck. We have been monitoring the timetable of events (with some help from our 'friends' on the inside) and understand that the program is on schedule. Surveyors have been appointed and the survey is complete, as of 21st August, so at long last things seem to be moving our way. We must hope that when it comes to number-crunching, commonsense prevails. If not then the fight goes on!!