IF anyone had any doubts on the value of restoring Warrington’s historic Golden Gates – today showed they are worth every penny of the £500,000 spent on restoring them to their former glory.
While I can understand people questioning such expenditure in times of austerity it is extremely important to protect our town’s history and heritage.
The council is often criticised when old historic buildings are bulldozed to make way for “progress” but very often when old buildings disappear, they are in private ownership.
Our Golden Gates are iconic and had fallen into a poor state of repair – in fact they were becoming dangerous. Also the money used to restore them was from different funding pots and heritage grants and couldn’t have been used to help the homeless or feed the hungry, which are different and important issues in their own right.
While £500,000 is a lot of money, I am told the work will last at least 50-60 years before it will need to be done again.
Now the Golden Gates have been completely restored and what better way to see them than on a sunny Warrington Walking – and boy was it sunny.
Having covered walking day for more than three decades, sunny ones have been few and far between – so it was wonderful to see the sunshine gleaming off the Golden Gates.
As the Rector for Warrington Revd Paul Wilson re-dedicated the gates, it was his Warrington Walking Day swansong as he moves on to pastures new after six short years.
While his time in Warrington has been relatively short compared to his predecessors, he has been a great ambassador for the town and we wish him well for the future.
Warrington’s Golden Gates restored to their former glory
