Editor Is canal restoration booming?

Editorial Bright future?

Is more being spent on restoration than any time since the Millennium?

Editorial

Over the last 21 months, since normal WRG life (and normal life of any kind) was interrupted by the pandemic, you may have noticed that I’ve got into the habit of liberally sprinkling my editorials with expressions like “As we go to press...” and “The situation could change...” not to mention the odd reference to the possibility that Covid-19 could “turn round and bite us on the arse” if we start behaving like it’s going away. And sure enough, this time there are another couple of cases where ‘the situation’ did indeed change, and we’re into avoiding collecting teethmarks on the collective WRG arse. As Jonathan’s already mentioned in the Acting Chairman’s Column, we won’t be running a New Year Camp this time; more recently with the uncertainty surrounding the emergence of the new variant not long before we went to press, the London WRG and Kescrg Christmas joint dig and party has also bitten the dust.

However having got that out of the way, we can look a little futher into the future with some optimism. And with the usual disclaimers, we are going ahead with planning (albeit a couple of months later than usual, in the hope of a little more certainty) for what sounds like a really good summer of canal camps including some new sites. The Canal Camps Booklet with full details will (hopefully) appear in the next Navvies; in the meantime we’ve got a ‘pre-preview’ to give you all the advance information available as we go to press - See page 6.

But it’s when we come to look at the slightly longer term future that we can be really optimistic. Although to start with, I’m going to look a couple of decades back into the past...

I remember the sheer euphoria of being a waterways enthusiast around the turn of the Millennium and shortly afterwards. The arrival of the National Lottery, with its Millennium Fund aimed at landmark projects that could be completed by around 2002, fitted perfectly with the situation that several waterways schemes found themselves. And sure enough three tricky and expensive restorations - the Rochdale, Huddersfield, and Scottish Lowland Canals (Union and Forth & Clyde) - were completed, along with a brand new waterway (the Ribble Link) that many would have been sceptical about. And then I remember the slight disillusionment that followed, as the promised “Tranche Two” of restoration schemes which would follow on after the completion of the initial ones failed to materialise.

Yes, there were a lot of bright spots - the funding to complete the Droitwich, the first phase of the Cotswold, reopenings such as at Aston, Bugsworth, Tring, Froghall and Salford, and a huge number of number smaller, more local success stories. But just not quite the way things had really happened when there had been some tens of millions going into opening up canals. My fellow enthusiasts started to talk of restoration “in a long-term decline”, of us not seeing any more reopenings for a decade or more, and other such gloom and doom.

But consider where we’re at now. On pages 12-15 you can read about how a £15.4m Levelling Up Fund package will see a big step towards linking up the restored lengths of the Montgomery into a 27 mile navigable waterway. Meanwhile on the Chesterfield the Towns Fund is (subject to final confirmation) contributing 50% of an £11m package to restore the rest of the canal in Chesterfield Borough. And on the Cotswold Canals the £16m Lotterysupported package which will complete the Phase 1b (Saul to Stonehouse) link and open up 10 miles of waterway is getting properly under way, with the Bristol-Birmingham main line railway being dug up for a new canal bridge just as we go to press. And if we can allow ourselves to cross the Irish Sea, the Republic of Ireland Government has provided to •12m for the Ulster Canal, and committed to eventually reopening the entire section that’s in the Republic - it just needs somebody to fund the half of it that’s in Northern Ireland.

So remember these if you’re afflicted with doom and gloom. And remember that they all - even the Ulster - began with volunteer work, and WRG support.