HERITAGE campaigners have won their battle to preserve Colchester's last remaining section of tram rails.

Thanks to Colchester Civic Society and Colchester High Steward Sir Bob Russell the small section of line has been laid in a new pedestrian path linking Magdalen Street and Military Road at Host's student rooms scheme.

The student flats site used to be the home of the town's tram depot, later being converted in to a bus garage before the £16 million redevelopment into 252 student rooms was completed this year.

The surviving rails were originally located either side of an inspection pit and remained when all of the other tram rails across the town were removed.

Sir Bob and the civic society requested the rails be reused if the planning application for the site was approved.

Although Sir Bob opposed the development, saying it was too big and out of keeping with the area, he said at the time if permission was granted then the tram rails should be salvaged and used on site as a feature.

He and the civic society also requested the historic Military Road facade to the depot be saved during the construction process.

Both requests were approved and a Colchester coat of arms, which was fixed to the building in Magdalen Street, has been moved to the front of the new development, where a plaque giving a brief history of the town's trams system has been installed.

Sir Bob said: "I would like to thank Colchester’s planners and the developers for ensuring these important features of Colchester’s past have been retained.

"For present and future generations, they add to our town’s evolving history.”

Colchester's tram system was run by the council and operated between 1904 and 1929.