A popular tourist hotspot in Derbyshire has been closed temporarily due to safety concerns.
 
The Crich Tramway Village, a tram museum in Matlock, has announced it will be closed until at least Friday (20 May 2022).
 
A spokesman for the attraction said, "We are very sorry, but we are closed until at least Friday, 20 May 2022, due to a safety issue outside our depots, which means we cannot take our trams out, nor allow visitors to cross this area. Thank you for your understanding in this challenging time."
 
A whistleblower, who wished to remain anonymous, contacted Derbyshire Live and claimed that the tramway village had prior knowledge of the safety concerns.
 
They claimed, "They were given a report by someone saying that the infrastructure needed a lot of attention. They did make some concession to it, in that they said they would run slower through that part of the tramway, and run less open-top cars, because the overhead wire might fall down. Someone at the tramway knew, and leaked the report to the rail regulator, and they came onto site and condemned their site, so that's why it's closed."
 
However, Dr. Mike Galer, general manager of Crich Tramway Village, dismissed this idea and said that Crich Tramway Village had closed of its own accord.
 
He said, "We take safety seriously at the museum and have numerous systems to identify, track, and resolve safety issues. The infrastructure, as we call it, formed of the track, referred to as the permanent way professionally, overhead line, and direct current supply switch gear, is examined and serviced every winter during our closed period and more frequently as required, and the winter of 2021-2022 was no different, with hundreds of person-hours undertaken on the overhead line alone. This year, recognising there are some areas we need external professional assistance with, we contracted an external, accredited, company to undertake a professional assessment, this must be the report mentioned. A number of issues were identified to be rectified in that report during 2022 and beyond, but we were signed off to operate. The company involved have been on site several times to assess and plan the investment, and to design the schedule to resolve issues in the weeks and months ahead. During a scheduled visit by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), our regulator, this report was obviously discussed. We are duty-bound to resolve the issues that have further been identified by the ORR as a matter of urgency. We do not disagree with them. We were not obligated to close, however, the areas of concern are in areas which are sensitive and have high customer passage, so we have chosen for simplicity to close the whole site temporarily while we concentrate on resolving the critical issues."
 
Faith Pring.