Pontcysyllte Aqueduct World Heritage site 'needs promoting'
The spectacular Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was awarded World Heritage Site status eight years ago – but little has been done to capitalise on the title, a Welsh Assembly member has said.
Now a culture and heritage summit could be held in the summer to see how the area could better benefit from the status moving forward.
The World Heritage Site takes in the Llangollen canal from the Shropshire border at Chirk Bank to Llangollen itself and includes both the Pontcysyllte and the Chirk aqueducts.
Mark Isherwood, North Wales assembly member says the Welsh Government has made little progress in driving forward plans for heritage-led regeneration in North-East Wales.
He challenged the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure, Ken Skates AM, in the Assembly Chamber over the matter.
Mr Isherwood said there as a potential 15.5 million people within a two-hour catchment area of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct that had been identified as potential visitors.
“It is now eight years since World Heritage Site status was awarded, and I think eight years since the then-Welsh Government first established a regional partnership body to drive forward the regional industrial heritage offer,” Mr Isherwood AM said.
“The idea was to incorporate not only the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and the 11 miles of canal from Llangollen to the Shropshire border but also the Llangollen Railway, the Ceiriog Valley, Brymbo, and stretching across to Flintshire’s heritage trails including the Rhydymwyn Valley and Greenfield Valley Trust.
“We still haven’t got that joined-up approach and we still haven’t got the through-ticketing, which bodies such as Llangollen Railway are proposing.”
He welcomed the input from the organisation Glandwr Cymru but said more regional bodies should be involved in promoting the area’s regional heritage.
“We need to incorporate better those wider voices so that, together, we can achieve the objectives we all share.”
The Cabinet Secretary, who is the assembly member for Clwyd South, said he was ‘keen to encourage movement speedily, and with dynamism, in the direction that Mr Isherwood outlined’.
“I’d like to see more through-ticketing for sure,” Mr Skates AM said.
“I’d like to see greater co-ordination between and amongst the various organisations that are involved in the culture and heritage sector in industrial north-east Wales.
“And, for that reason, I think it would perhaps be very sensible to convene a culture and heritage summit during the summer, to bring together those organisations, including Glandŵr Cymru, a lead partner in the Pontcysyllte world heritage site activity.
“In drawing together those various interests, we may be able to make progress.”