Restoration round-up

Featuring updates from the world of waterway restoration, this edition focuses on the restorations where WRG will be holding its summer camps this year. If you’d like to see your waterways restoration project featured in a future issue, send your updates to amy.tillson@waterways.org.uk

Cotswold Canals

Cotswold Canals Trust celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022 and continues to go from strength to strength. Recent successes include Weymoor Bridge, Inglesham Lock’s popular open day, the A38 Whitminster roundabout and now Ocean Jubilee Rail Bridge. For the second year on the trot, Cotswold Canals Partners picked up the Best New Build under £8m from the ICE SouthWest Awards, this time for Ocean Jubilee Rail Bridge. The bridge reinstates a navigable channel for boats to pass under the railway and was delivered in just seven days during Christmas 2021.

WRG’s latest contribution to the restoration and reopening of the Cotswold Canals will be to rebuild the part-demolished and largely buried Westfield Lock (now John Robinson Lock) and to reinstate the aqueduct/culvert carrying a stream under its top end.

Lichfield and Hatherton

In November 2022 LHCRT was successful in a funding bid to create an ecology park and put a section of the canal in water at Darnford Moors. The European Regional Development Fund is providing £41,200 of the grant, with match funding of £75,000 from HS2’s Community and Environment Fund.

WRG’s job for this summer is to construct 300m of new towpath through a canalside copse as part of the Darnford Moors Ecology Park. The path will be made up with timber edging and a compacted stone infill. A contractor is currently on site building the canal channel and it is expected that we will also get to work on this section once they have finished.

Lapal Canal

A new organisation, the Ty Banc Canal Group, has been formed with the aim of enhancing and promoting the canal. We will be working with them on various aspects of their navigation. Work went on for most of last year on creating a new wharf and turning basin on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal to enable visiting boats to enter the Lapal Canal.

Currently there is an informal path between a bridge and the towpath. WRG volunteers will help to excavate the ground and build a new hardened path suitable for all users. This new access will consist of a switch-back ramp and pedestrian steps. A post-and-rail fence will be erected and the towpath there will also be upgraded.

Louth Canal

Louth Navigation Trust has restored the historic Navigation Warehouse in Louth, improved the towpath and carried out remedial work on some of the surviving locks. Work will continue at Ticklepenny Lock, a barrel-sided lock thought to be unique to the Louth Navigation. The brickwork is in a poor state and volunteers will employ traditional heritage building methods to restore the lock chamber using the original bricks.

Neath Canal

Following concerns about the state of management by the local authority of the formerly restored Glyn Neath to Resolven length of this South Wales Valleys canal, a new organisation, the Ty Banc Canal Group, has been formed with the aim of enhancing and promoting the canal.

WRG will be working with it on various aspects. Currently, the Neath Canal flows over the towpath in wet weather at three locations and the drainage pipes are not big enough to cope with the water flow. In addition, two timber footbridges at locks have been removed, preventing access to the lock island for vegetation management.

Volunteers will install new drainage under the towpath at three locations. They will also be building two timber footbridges. Work could also include building an overflow weir, reinstating coping stones on an aqueduct and bridge, bank protection and vegetation clearance.

Derby Canal

The Derby Canal once ran from Sandiacre on the Erewash Canal westwards to Derby, then south to meet the Trent & Mersey Canal at Swarkestone. The length through Derby has been largely obliterated by redevelopment since the canal closed, but Derby & Sandiacre Canal Trust has a cunning plan to get back there using a combination of a section of new canal, a canalised length of river, and a new boatlift called the Derby Arm.

WRG has held camps at Borrowash for several years and has been engaged in remedial work to the lock chamber. This year’s camp will move upstream of the lock and volunteers will do remedial work to the masonry canal bank walls.

Canal Camps

IWA’s Waterway Recovery Group has launched its summer programme of working holidays called Canal Camps. These week-long getaways mean that you can help restore the derelict waterways of England and Wales. Canal Camps are a great experience for anyone who loves being outdoors and enjoys meeting new people om di erent backgrounds and of di erent ages.

This summer, volunteers will support seven di erent canal restoration projects and undertake a range of work. For example, volunteers will help rebuild John Robinson Lock on the Cotswold Canals, or reinstate the aqueduct/ culvert carrying a stream under its top end. They may even be involved in the construction of 300m of new towpath on Lichfield Canal or help create an access ramp between the bridge and the towpath on the Lapal Canal.

Please be aware that most of the Canal Camps are fully booked. Further camps might be confirmed at a later stage. waterways.org.uk/canalcamps