Progress Wey & Arun Canal

Meanwhile the Wey & Arun Canal Trust are starting work on building the second of their two liftbridges on their Birtley section of canal

Wey & Arun Canal

Wey & Arun Canal Trust volunteers have been making great progress on their latest major canal restoration project in Surrey, a few miles south of the point at which the Canal connects with the national waterway network near Shalford.

The Trust is restoring a section of canal at Birtley, near Bramley, to create a length of waterway initially suitable for kayakers, paddleboarders and canoeists to use, but ultimately as part of the long term plan to reopen the through route to the South Coast for inland waterways craft. As part of this project, work is underway to construct the second of two bridges in this picturesque area.

Three years ago an intensive three-week programme of Canal Camps built the first of these two bridges, initially with a temporary fixed low-level deck. At the site for the second bridge, the canal is blocked by a causeway that carries a bridleway and cycleway so volunteers have constructed a diversion to allow rightof-way use to continue while the bridge is built.

They have also worked with gas distribution company SGN to relocate

STOP PRESS... on the Montgomery...

This drone shot arrived just as we were going to press and too late for our main Montgomery progress report. It shows that Shropshire Union Canal Society volunteers had taken out the dam separating their worksite from the Crickheath winding hole, and were completing the last 10 metres of their channellining marathon ready for reopening to Crickheath in 2023. Full story next time.

a gas main under the canal bed.

Piling contractor Neil Foundations Systems set to work at the end of August and volunteers have now begun work on the bridge foundations. Concrete blinding was applied to the canal bed in September to create a sound working base, and working parties have been constructing formwork and steel cages at the Trust’s depot and site ahead of casting the concrete ground beams needed.

The bridge will be a manually operated lift bridge, and the same type of mechanism will be fitted to the first bridge, several hundred metres to the south, to replace the fixed deck.