Homes Under The Hammer host Martin Roberts says £15m budget for Rhondda Tunnel plan is 'relatively small amount'

BBC Homes Under The Hammer presenter Martin Roberts has revealed the budget wanted for ambitious plans to reopen a two-mile railway tunnel in south Wales and turn it into a tourist attraction. The Rhondda Tunnel in Blaencwm has been closed for more than 50 years.

Martin told The Sun the project to reopen it will need a £15 million budget with the aim of being finished in two years. The disused tunnel was built in 1885 by the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway to link the Rhondda Fawr at Blaencwm to the Afan valley. It opened in 1890 as the third longest railway tunnel in Wales, but it finally became redundant in 1970. The Rhondda Tunnel Society formed in 2014 with the aim of reopening the tunnel as a tourist attraction and bringing new focus to the beautiful but relatively unknown area at the top of the Rhondda Fawr valley.

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