Dragon Work Could Start This Year – Project To Rival To Christ The Redeemer In Rio

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Jan 3rd, 2017

Councillors this evening agreed to give the proposed mammoth Welsh Dragon project a further five years by re-approving planning permission.

With this afternoon’s decision it appears likely a crowd funding campaign will be started to raise over a million pounds to help pay for the project.

The Planning Committee were reminded by the Chairman that they were to look solely at land use questions, and not to raise points on financial matters or land transactions, saying that was a matter for a different committee.

Members supported the plans, but questions were raised over the change in the detail that will see any issues with the nearby Halton roundabout resolved after construction and after 18 months operation of the Dragon. It was argued that a ‘live’ traffic survey would be more useful to know what problems to solve, however the Chair pointed out that when considering supermarket planning applications modelling was satisfactory.

The Chair persistently queried what would happen if there was a large sum required to solve future traffic issues and the developer did not have the money to cover it. Councillors were told that the issue would be resolved ultimately, and presumably paid for if they money could not be found, by the Trunk Road Authority.

Cllr John Pritchard enquired over the bus service provisions promised in the application, pointing out some services were hard to get in the town’s wards at the moment let alone promising an unknown service at a future date.

Shortly after the meeting Mr Wingett took to the airwaves of BBC Shropshire on the Adam and Vicki show, where he told them the project should be seen as on a level of the Eiffel Tower or Christ The Redeemer in Rio.

Blaming the recession and ‘unusual’ nature of the project for delays so far, Mr Wingett said the project will cost £2.5m and a crowd funder for ‘in excess’ £1m of that could begin within days. The crowd funder will allow people to ‘actually buy shares and own a bit’, adding “it is no different to owning shares in any other company”.

“It will be a staggering sight”.

When asked on the timeframes Mr Wingett said it could be this year that work starts: “If the crowdfunding goes ahead…that will start in a few days or a few weeks…it is two months to fundraise… so go on site this year”

Which company will have its shares on offer is yet to be publicly disclosed, but a hint could be on Companies House – at the time of writing Mr Wingett is Director of a company called Great Welsh Dragon Limited (that changed its name from BLTWALES Ltd in October) and others including BLTWALES Ltd that also changed its name – from Great Welsh Dragon Limited, again in October.

The full interview referenced above is on the below video: