A number of wealthy individuals and blue-chip companies are lining up to back Preston’s tram dream.
These new images show how the trams would look running along the city’s Fishergate high street if the plans from transport group Preston Trampower get the go-ahead.
The group has also created a team of workers will be talking with people living nearby to the proposed line which is expected to run from the Red Scar Industrial Estate in Ribbleton to the city’s train station.
Shaun Baldwin, a spokesman for the firm, said that investors who had expressed an interest in stumping up the cash for the line wanted to see its initial demonstrator line working before they signed up.
He said: “All the investors we have been speaking with are local people and local companies, we want to keep everything in Preston.
“It is a variety of different people, both entrepreneurs with a connection to the city or larger companies with an interest here.
“The thing that unites them is that they all have an interest in doing this to improve Preston.”
Trampower expects to get the demonstrator, which will run along a currently unused track between the West View Leisure Centre in Ribbleton and the entrance to the Miley Tunnel at Deepdale, running by the end of the year.
A planning application for the demonstrator is expected to be approved by city council planners within the next fortnight.
Mr Baldwin said that a team of community workers would start work next Monday and start speaking to people living in the area.
He said: “They will be out and about answering any questions people have about the project and there is a new website due to launch on October 4 which will have all the information people need.
“From what we have managed to pick up so far, there are no objections to getting the demonstrator going ahead, the line as it stands is overgrown and a target for fly-tippers and therefore people feel this is a positive step.
“It is not just what this can bring to Preston, it is the fact that these trams will roll-out across the country and for once Preston is going to be right at the forefront of things.”
Fulwood-based planning consultants MCK Associates, which have drew up the artist’s impressions of the trams on Fishergate, have started work on designing the Guild Line which will run from Red Scar to the train station.
It goes along existing line through Ribbleton, crossing the city’s Ringway and down the high street.