Broughton Climbing Wall in Salford, due to close on Friday this week, has been given a three-month opening extension until March 2014. BMC Climbing Walls Officer Rob Adie reports on the latest twist in the saga.

Built in 1991, Broughton Wall is one of the most iconic climbing walls in Britain and was used as a training venue by Ian Vickers and John Dunne and many other hard climbers of their era when they were training for competitions or hard grit projects. It’s famous for instilling great footwork and phenomenal finger strength.

The wall’s popularity was also boosted by the creation in 1996 of a guidebook, which was an ever-expanding Excel spreadsheet listing the numbered holds permitted on a particular problem. The guidebook ultimately grew to include over 1,000 problems. So even though the hand rendered concrete design meant that the wall never changed, you were unlikely to run out of new problems to try; and of course, your favourites never disappeared.

The wall’s usage has fallen in recent years due to the lure of modern facilities and irregular opening hours, but the wall still has a core following and is regularly used by university students. Recently, however, the threat of Salford City Council removing its funding from the building which houses the wall has made its future uncertain. The building was taken over by D@ta Systems, an IT eductation company, and the BMC have been in negotiations with the company about the wall.

On 9 December, D@ta Systems staff were told by the council that it had decided that the building was to be closed down - even though they were in the process of negotiating their lease with the council - and they had until the 20 December to vacate the building.

On 10 December, I spoke to one of the staff at D@ta Systems and they said they were consulting with solicitors and were looking to get a six-month extension to the order for them to quit the building. They have now been granted three months and have until March to try map out a future for the building.

The BMC will continue to work with the centre, but considering the council has pulled the rug out from under D@ta Systems it does not look good for the future of this iconic wall. The wall is a first generation Bendcrete design made from solid concrete and would most likely not survive any effort to relocate the wall to another venue.

The best way to help the effort to save the wall would be to increase usage of the wall in the next few months. Opening times seem to be erratic and change from week to week; the best approach is to call the centre and find out when they are open on 0161 792 2375. So get down there and sample some of the biting crimps and soul-destroying smears!

Download the Broughton Wall guidebook

« Back