Navvies news info for trailer towing

navvies News

Licence changes for trailers and new petrol formula - how do they affect us? Council decision favours Uttoxeter Canal, and Adrian gets an award!

Trailers

As you may have heard, the rules regarding trailer towing are changing. Until now, if you passed your driving test after 1 January 1997 you were restricted in what you could tow unless you took an additional test. This additional test is now being scrapped and so the vast majority of people who have passed their driving test in a car will be able to tow 3500Kg. It is important to note that NOTHING has changed with the WRG driver authorisation scheme, so you will still need the appropriate categories on your DA card for both the trailer and towing vehicle before towing trailers for WRG and/or other societies who use our DA scheme.

E10 Petrol

E numbers? In petrol? What, are they adding artificial colour and flavour to fuel now? Err, no. As you may have seen, recently the standard unleaded petrol coming from fuel pumps has been changed to include 10% ethanol - hence the name E10. This has been done to reduce the carbon footprint of fuel but it does have some consequences.

Cars sold since 2011 have components that will tolerate ethanol, but older vehicles and plant like mowers, strimmers, pumps etc still rely on rubber pipes and gaskets and in some cases soldered copper floats, all of which are attacked and degraded by ethanol. In addition, ethanol is a solvent that is excellent at removing all that old crud that was firmly stuck in your fuel system and then depositing it in the fuel filter - or worse, in the jets of the carburettor. Lastly it is hygroscopic, which means it absorbs water which then adds to the corrosion effect and also means it degrades more quickly when stored. All in all it is not an ideal fuel for use in the sort of kit we use on site.

So what should you do for running petrol powered plant? Well you have three options: 1: Just use E10 petrol. For the odd tank of fuel where someone filled a can with the wrong stuff this isn’t a problem; most of the issues are long term effects anyway. 2: Switch to ‘super unleaded’. For now, super unleaded remains at up to 5% ethanol (as standard unleaded was) and typically only contains 2%-3%. You may need to tweak the mixture when you first switch over to compensate for the higher octane. 3: Switch to an alkylate type fuel. Probably the most well known brand is

Aspen though there are others are available and they come as either 4 stroke or pre-mixed 2 stroke (i.e. you do not need to add 2 stroke oil); again, when you first switch over you may need to tweak the mixture settings.

These fuels have a number of benefits, the two main ones being that they are very stable and so can be stored without degrading and even left in equipment for months without any problems (no more having to run the saw out of petrol at the end of the day), and also the emissions from the equipment are less harmful to the user. So why isn’t everyone using it? Well it is considerably more expensive than petrol but particularly for kit that is less frequently used it may be your best option.

Froghall threat rejected

The application to build houses across the route of the former Uttoxeter Canal at Froghall, which would have prevented future reopening of the canal by any practicable route, has been unanimously rejected by Staffordshire Moorlands District Council’s planning committee.

As described in more detail in previous issues of Navvies, there are actually two pieces of land concerned: one area which is earmarked for housing in local masterplanning documents, and a smaller

adjacent strip along the route of the canal which is protected for future canal restoration. But the developers said that unless they could build houses on both pieces of land, it wasn’t worth their while to develop the site at all. There were concerns among canal supporters that the council would feel under pressure to approve the plans, because it would need to satisfy the need for new housing somewhere within its boundaries.

A campaign by Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust and other opponents of the housing scheme saw some 300 objections submitted, with actor and canal supporter Sir David Suchet backing their cause. The developers Hadleigh Industrial Estates said there was “no evidence that the canal could be restored” but in case it could, they suggested alternative routes for it to take: one involved canalising the River Churnet and adding several new bridges (which probably wouldn’t have gone down well with the Environment Agency); the other involved a new canal tunnel. CUCT dismissed both as “ill informed and unworkable”.

Finally after several postponements of the planning meeting, the application was considered and unanimously turned down in September. Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the matter - there could be a further application with some changes but not enough to satisfy objectors; or there could even be an appeal against the decision. But given that the objections at the meeting, came not just from CUCT and IWA (Rupert Smedley, who many of you will know through WRG, put the case for protecting the canal for future restoration on behalf of both of these organisations) but also from councillors, representatives of the smaller local authorities and others, and also that the canal issue wasn’t the only factor by a long way - there were also issues of inappropriate size of development for the area; lack of local services and facilities; visual impact; poor road access; sustainability; lack of vision; ground contamination; and flood risk - there seem grounds for optimism that the threat’s been seen off for now.

Raffle tickets...

...for the Wey & Arun Canal Trust’s raffle should fall out of this issue as you open it.

We do understand that many of you will feel that you give plenty of time and money to the cause of waterway restoration already via WRG - and that’s fine. But when we include other organisations’ tickets in Navvies, we like them to be relevant to what we’re doing and to what’s in the magazine - and this is no exception.

See the article on page 23 about KESCRG helping with the first phase of the crucial Tickners Heath Crossing which will extend navigation on the Wey & Arun’s restored summit section southwards towards the completed Loxwood Link length to see how useful any support you give to the Wey & Arun Canal Trust - whether in cash or by volunteering on future working parties - would be.

Congratulations...

Mikk Bradley

...to our ace digger driver Adrian Sturgess who is pictured being presented with the Inland Waterways Association’s Richard Bird Medal by Jenny Morris, while on the recent Montgomery Canal Camp.

Adrian has volunteered on over 70 canal camps and national events plus lots more weekend work parties, and trained over 200 machine operators. Well done! page 37