Don't Forget the Walls

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Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Update April 2008 1.2 Evening Leader reports: "Chester twinned with Jericho" 1.3 Chronicle Reports: "Walls built with Northern Rock" 1.4 BBC Reports: "Disaster Strikes Merseyside" 2 Links

[edit] Introduction

Unsurprisingly, as Chester prepared for another local election on 3 May 2007, the various local political parties were busy mustering campaigns on various issues, almost exclusively linked to Chester's heritage. The city Walls have fallen into disrepair in recent years and Chester Tories focused on this particular issue.

The Tories set up a website and online petition to build support for freeing up funds to restore the Walls. They stressed that this is a non-party political campaign, although cynics might think otherwise. And, as might be expected, there is a lot of squabbling among all the local parties as to who's done (or not done) what to keep the Walls in tip-top condition.

Campaign signatures are also being collected on the streets. The online petition had 4,000 signatures at end March 2007.

On 18th October 2007 a part of the walls was closed "as being unsafe".

• The story was reported on the BBC here.
• The Evening Leader reported as follows
• Visit Northwest also covered the story
• ... and the Liverpool Post

This message appeared on the Chester Conservative Party website:

• Conservative-controlled Chester City Council has closed a 20 metre section of the city walls after an inspection revealed that a structure alongside it is unsafe. During work being carried out on the Grosvenor Hotel, it was discovered that a free standing section of wall running alongside the hotel was unstable. As a result the city council’s engineers carried out a closer examination of the structure, and have decided to close this section of the walls walkway as a precautionary measure in the interests of public safety. A short diversionary route will be sign posted for residents and visitors. Boughton Heath Councillor Pamela Hall who helped run Chester Conservatives ‘Don’t Forget the Walls’ campaign said, “This is what we feared before May’s election. I have spoken to the new council leadership and have been reassured the Conservative administration takes this problem seriously. I would now ask the Lib Dem and Labour Councillors who accused us of scaremongering to apologise and get behind Conservative efforts to repair this historic and much loved structure. Deputy Leader Stephen Mosley told chesterconservatives.com, “Ever since the Conservatives took control in May we have been working to find out what is wrong with the walls. This news confirms everything we said in opposition when the then ruling Lib Dem/Labour Alliance said the walls were completely safe. I would like to assure Chester residents that we made the walls a manifesto priority and nothing has changed.

Many people failed to read the press carefully and assumed that the city walls themselves were in an imminent state of collapse. This was not actually the case - the problem was with a brick wall adjacent the city walls (an unimportant part of the Grosvenor Hotel) and not with the walls themselves - full details are provided by the City Council press release. Evidently modern walls are not built like they used to be!

[edit] Update April 2008

[edit] Evening Leader reports: "Chester twinned with Jericho"

As reported on the website of the Chester Chronicle, at around 5pm on April 3 "a part of the walls near the Grosvenor Hotel collapsed". Barriers have been installed either side of the collapse to ensure visitors’ safety. However there isn't very much to see - the walls themselves seem more or less intact from outside. Only from very close up (on the wall itself) can one see that the inner face of the wall has collapsed where it backs onto the Grosvenor Hotel car-park. Over a length of about 20 feet, a section of the inner face of the wall has become a pile of rubble and several of the paving stones making up the walkway on the wall have fallen into the void.

Curiously, this is very same section of the walls which was closed (see above) when an adjacent modern wall was found to be unsafe. The section was apparently repaired in March 2008 (see press release).

[edit] Chronicle Reports: "Walls built with Northern Rock"

Deputy Leader of Chester City Council Stephen Mosley said, “Sadly this proves that we were right about the state of the ancient walls when we launched our ‘Don’t Forget the Walls’ campaign in early 2007”. There is a further press release

[edit] BBC Reports: "Disaster Strikes Merseyside"

[edit] Links

• Don't Forget the Walls - directs visitors to the news page of the website for Chester Conservatives.
• Virtual Stroll is the best site for information about the walls.
• Chester City Council's Conservation Plan for the walls