progress Wey & Arun Our round-up of progress on waterway restoration projects begins on the Wey & Arun, with early stages of the next big project at Tickner’s Heath Wey & Arun Canal
Pictures by WACT
You all know that volunteers don’t need asking twice when there’s an exciting and large-scale project to get our teeth into, and it so it was when the green light was finally given to begin work on the Wey & Arun Canal Trust’s latest major restoration project near the canal’s summit. A combination of the NWPG mobile group’s volunteers and the Trust’s own volunteers have been working together on the third Saturday of the month for some time at various sites along the canal, but with such a big project to tackle we’ve now extended this to every Thursday as well. The project involves building a road bridge, pedestrian bridge and eventually digging out 200m of new canal at Tickner’s Heath, near Dunsfold, where the route of the
canal is blocked by the causeway which carries Dunsfold Road. The site won’t be new to Navvies readers: last October WRG Forestry worked their magic on some trees that needed to be cut back here as part of a week-long camp. WRG BITM have held a weekend on the site in very muddy conditions installing drainage and stripping topsoil. A team from Southern Water also sent its staff along to plant a new 120m long hedge comprising some 720 mixed native shrubs along the boundary fencing (back before lockdown when these things could be done). In January some 120 8x4ft fence panels were painted a fetching forest green by NWPG and other northern team volunteers which will form the hoarding fence for the site works compound The details: the new road bridge will be built within the footprint of the existing
The restored channel at Tickner’s Heath, seen from the existing road blockage
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