Progress on the S&N After taking advantage of the enforced lockdown break in work to get on with some planning, SNCT are back up and running at Wappenshall Basin Shrewsbury & Newport Canals
Bernie Jones
Obviously, we have had very little activity on the ground, due to you-know-what. However, it has provided the Shrewsbury & Newport Canals Trust with time to do some planning. This has focussed on three main areas – Wappenshall Wharf, Berwick Tunnel Approaches and Highways England Grants. Wappenshall Wharf: it was most frustrating having to cease work early in January, because our great team of volunteers had managed to build half of the 42m retaining wall at the northern edge of the east basin and the remainder would have been completed by now. So, we have planned how we are going to get the remainder of the spoil out of the basin without leaving our JCB marooned in it. This will then permit the rest of the 5m x 2.5m concrete basin floor slabs to be cast and the expansion joints fitted. We then need to finish the retaining wall brick courses to match the remaining basin perimeter, fit the escape ladders and then add the water! Berwick Tunnel Approaches: as many WRGies will know, as they helped move this section’s restoration forward significantly with a couple of weekend camps, we have improved the south eastern tunnel approach a lot more until lockdown stopped work. However, we have now done all the paperwork necessary to progress the rebuilding of the Donkey Shed / Lengthsman’s Hut and the portal wall at the north western portal. This has been forwarded to the Canal & River Trust (as they own the Berwick Tunnel and its approaches) for approval so we can hit the ground running when current restrictions permit. Weekend camp, anyone? Highways England Grants: I’m sure the good news from Cotswold Canal Trust about their £4m grant from Highways England (HE) will be known well by now. [In case it isn’t: they got 4 million quid from an HE fund of public money set up specifically for remediation / mitigation of damage to the environment caused as a result of national road construction work over the years, and it has mainly been spent on reinstating the A38 crossing of the Stroudwater Navigation to replace the old bridge and adjacent canal length which were destroyed when the M5 motorway was built in the 1970s] So, we have done a lot of work to learn how SNCT might obtain grants to get our canal across both the A5 dual carriageway at Berwick and the A41 Trunk Road in Newport. This is a massive administrative task and has kept a small team of us from going stir crazy during lockdown. There are no guarantees we will get either or both of these grants, but we will be giving it everything to ensure that we do! Stop press: [update and pics received as we went to print] Because we are working to CDM Regulations and have done our Risk Assessment to be Covid Removing shuttering from top section of Wappenshall basin wall compliant, SNCT have man-
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