DAPS Media Release

Press Officer:- Neil Marsden

E-mail:- neil.marsden3@ntlworld.com

Telephone:- 07986116168

For immediate release March 7th 2008

Media Release

Another Helping Hand from Halton

The Daniel Adamson Preservation Society, which is working to restore the “Daniel Adamson”

Britain’s sole surviving steam tug – tender, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a further grant of £10,000 by Halton Borough Council.

This brings to almost £25,000 the total funding awarded by Halton since the project to restore the vessel began in 2004.

The ‘Daniel Adamson’ was for much of her working life based on the Manchester Ship Canal at Runcorn’s Old Quay Yard and is still remembered with much affection by the people of Halton, many of whom had close ties with the vessel during her working life.

Many families in the Borough were employed on the Ship Canal, while several had close links with the ship as crew or maintenance workers.  This in some cases involved many generations of the same family over the vessel’s 60+ year working life.

The grants received from Halton Borough Council have been mainly allocated to the ongoing restoration of the vessel’s original main engines, which like the vessel herself date from 1903.

This phase of the restoration process is estimated will cost in the region of £50,000 and allows vital work to proceed whilst major funding for the complete restoration is sought from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other organisations.

Much of this work is being undertaken by the society’s own volunteers, drawn from a pool of over thirty regulars from all across the region, many with an enviable level of expertise compared with similar projects elsewhere and together they have already amassed in excess of 30,000 hours work on the vessel, plus a great deal more ‘behind the scenes.’

To mark the occasion of this latest award on Tuesday 4^th March, the Mayor and Mayoress of Halton, Councillor Mike Hodgkinson and his wife, Mrs. Kathy Hodgkinson visited the vessel at her berth in Sandon Dock, Liverpool where the restoration process is in full swing.

Following a tour of the vessel, during which they were shown work aboard and in the newly commissioned shore-side workshop, His Worship the Mayor presented a cheque for £10,000 to Working Party Co-ordinator and Chief Engineer, John Deakin.