feature Outside of the box Where might restoration groups look for the big funding they need in the future? We look at three unlikely-seeming sources: roads, rails and water... mile of the Cotswold Canals missing between Eastington and Whitminster, meaning that a ...or off the wall. Or blue sky thinking. Or new length will be needed including new left-field. Or whatever this week’s buzzcrossings of the M5 and A38, is because it phrase is for something that seems to have was destroyed in the early 1970s when the come from nowhere but might just turn out M5 was built. to be the next big thing. In our case, someSo a bid was put in, and duly attracted thing which could be the next big source of a £4m grant which is paying for the twin waterway restoration funding (like, for exam- bridges being built to take the canal under ple, the Millennium Fund turned out to be, the A38 roundabout. This is actually one of some 20-plus years ago, or more recently the more expensive bits of the restoration the National Lottery Heritage Fund). the M5 crossing itself will involve diverting Or on the other hand, it might turn out the canal under an existing river bridge. It’s to be more like a damp squib. But certainly also all tied up with the Phase 1b bid for not entirely, at least in the case of the first of £10m from the Heritage Lottery Fund to the three possible funding sources we’re lookcomplete the rest of this length - which we’re ing at, because it’s already produced £4m for waiting for the final decision on right now. canal restoration which is being spent, even But that’s by the by. The point is, they as I type this, on putting the Stroudwater asked for £4m and got it. And meanwhile in Navigation near Whitminster (part of the next the Black Country, a second bid for a canal phase of the Cotswold Canals restoration) has been successful: at Titford Pools, where back under the A38 main road. the elevated M5 crosses the canal on concrete stilts, and the rainwater run-off from the motorway has been gradually silting the On the road to restoration... canal basin up for years, a grant from the And that first possible source is road consame fund is paying to clear it and to carry struction mitigation measures. You may recall that we’ve already mentioned it a couple of times in Navvies in connection with the A38 / Cotswold Canals crossing mentioned above. Basically, as part of its RIS 1 Road Investment Strategy, a multi-billion pound investment plan for the years 2015-20, a sizeable pot of money was established to provide grants for work to mitigate or remediate damage to the environment by road-building in the past. And as it happens, the reason that there’s a Paid for by Highways England, the A38/Stroudwater bridge takes shape
Restoration outside of the box...
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