News & views

The long-awaited/hated (opinion is divided) wheel is here, under construction in the gardens of the Royal York Hotel, next to the station.

These photos were taken this afternoon. As yet it doesn’t have its ‘pods’ attached. Lots of men in high-vis jackets were busily working around the base of it. Apparently work was delayed yesterday because of the high winds.

Though I was very opinionated on these pages about the previous plan to put the wheel within the old abbey wall, near the Museum Gardens, I’ve nothing against big wheels in general, and had a walk up to town in the cold today to see how things were progressing.

Here’s a bit of it in silhouette, from the Museum Gardens across the river, with a rather older bit of metalwork in the foreground.

For more ‘in-depth’ background/coverage, see the ‘Big wheel 2011′ page, added 10 Dec 2011.