The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The National Lottery Community fund are jointly funding the reopening of a historic secret Scarborough tunnel that was bricked up almost 50 years ago.
The restoration work will open up the link to the much-loved South Cliff Gardens, which has been a popular spot for tourists for hundreds of years. The old 5-metre long tunnel was closed back in 1973 for safety reasons.
It is expected to open this summer cutting out a mile-long detour that visitors currently have to take to get from one side to the other. Restoration work gardens has been taking place since spring 2021.
And, the tunnel underneath the Spa Cliff Lift is part of the £7.158m projects that will be undertaken by Hull-based civil engineering company, PBS Construction Ltd.
For the transformation of the gardens, £4,665,700 is being funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Community Fund as part of their Parks for People joint initiative, and the council itself contributed £2,041,000.
A spokeswoman for Scarborough Borough Council said: “The restoration project aims to preserve the gardens’ unique heritage and improve them in a way that will reconnect them with today’s residents and visitors, in the same way that the original gardens did more than one hundred years ago.
“One of the many improvements is the restoration and re-opening of a long lost tunnel under the Spa Cliff Lift. This will allow the completion of a fully accessible path, which will make a big difference to connectivity within the gardens.
“It will enable visitors to explore the entire length of the gardens, from the Spa Bridge all the way through to Holbeck, without having to go via the road above.”
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