Camp REport Wey & Arun

Delays to the planned work mean a quick change of plan, but NWPG still have a successful week at Loxwood on the Wey & Arun Canal

Wey & Arun Canal NWPG Camp: 20-27 August 2022

This camp was meant to be at Birtley, starting the second of two new lift bridges on this northern part of the Wey & Arun canal (the first bridge having been built largely during a three-week blitz of camps in summer 2019). But it was always going to be a tall order to get everything in place in time for our planned camp at the end of August. Dams had to be installed across the canal channel and a bridleway diverted over one of them; a gas main (which ran through the new bridge site) needed to be re-routed by SGN contractors and piles bored and poured before WRG volunteers could do anything constructive. In the end, all those things happened a few days before our camp was due to commence - but unfortunately it was too late.

Plan B – luckily there was one! To Loxwood and the restored navigable ‘Loxwood Link’ section for some improvement works. The Trust had been given two funding grants – one from the Parish Council to re-surface the towpath from Devil’s Hole Lock towards

Southlands Lock and a second from the British Canoe Union to provide low level timber landing stags. These were to help canoes and paddleboards to portage around the locks. The camp’s tasks were to build up to four stages and carry out about 250m of towpath improvement work. This provided plenty of variety with plant driving and carpentry being the main skilled tasks.

Four weeks from the decision to change venue allowed just enough time for the Douglas Fir timber (from a local timber yard) to be ordered and delivered and the risk assessments and method statements to be prepared and approved. Thanks to Dave Evans of Wey & Arun Cana Trust (WACT) for ensuring that this happened in time for us to start work on the Sunday morning of the camp. Our accommodation was at Kirdford. The village hall committee have always been very obliging fitting in WRG camps and weekends and have been doing so since the 1980’s. Having a hall that is always available for weeks of camps in the summer is not something to be taken for granted. Saturday morning and the well-estab-