Island landmark is restored

A memorial statue honouring Telford's miners has been returned to the traffic island that was its home before it was destroyed when a 14-tonne lorry ploughed through it.

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Designer Gerry Foxall, 73, went back to Granville roundabout in Donnington on Monday, February 22, to see the return of the statue he built 15 years ago.

The statue was damaged when a lorry mounted the island and smashed into it in October.

The sculpture, which stood on the roundabout for 12 years, was repaired in a workshop at Ironbridge Power Station by experts who spent months painstakingly putting it back together.

Maintenance workers at Telford & Wrekin Council moved the statue from the power station last week to Granville House in Donnington and returned it to the island on Monday morning.

Mr Foxall, from Madeley, said: "I have been looking forward to today ever since they took it off the island.

"The power station has done a good job and I'm very pleased with it going back up."

Mr Foxall was in hospital at the time of the smash and only found out when his wife Dianne, 69, showed him a copy of the Shropshire Star.

He said: "My wife brought me the paper and I was shocked by it.

"I didn't think it would be smashed up like it was.

"It's terrible when you are helpless in a hospital bed and you have to ask people to do things for you but I want to thank the council, the power station and my son David and granddaughter's husband, Jason, for getting it back up."