THERE has been talk recently about a possible of a bid for World Heritage status to tie in with the 200th Anniversary of the Stockton-Darlington railway, writes Rachel Anderson, NECC Head of Member Relations.

World Heritage Status is conferred by Unesco on sites which have “outstanding universal value” in terms of human development whether that is ecological, industrial, artistic or architectural (to name but a few).

The crowd of railway enthusiasts gathered at Locomotion last week were all in agreement that railways are pivotal to human development. But, among the talk of Gresley K4s and Sentinel Shunters, there was some debate whether Darlington belongs on the same list as Sydney Opera House, Brussels’ Grand Place, or indeed, the site of Xanadu. Actually, to some of the people there, Locomotion was Xanadu.

What became clear throughout the afternoon is that whilst Darlington has its place in world history, the bar for inclusion on the UK’s proposed list, never mind Unesco’s is very high. Unesco have a list of 10 criteria and, in fairness, a site only has to qualify on one but convincing everyone whom needs to be convinced that you qualify will take at least 10 years and around £500,000 the experts say.

The bigger issue is that we may have the provenance but, at the moment, what we have actually got is a few buildings, a slightly tatty bridge no-one can see and a couple of historically important grassy knolls. What we don’t have is a narrative which makes sense to the mildly curious tourist much less screams “we gave railways to the world and we love them” to anyone from Unesco.

However, what if we did? OK, it is unlikely we could pull off a transformation to a World Heritage Site but working on the principle “if you build it they will come” we should at least start with a tidy up and a plan. Building it and they will come seems to be rife around here at the moment with the genius/bonkers (depending on your point of view) Eleven Arches project in Bishop Auckland and the National Maritime Museum in Hartlepool. Darlington must seize the chance to pull in the tourists visiting those attractions with a third grace based on a well told story of what we gave the world and giving visitors a fantastic value for money experience.

The Council’s can’t and shouldn’t do it alone but someone needs to start the Sentinel Shunter rolling and fast, it’s not long till 2025.