Editor a return closer to normality?

editorial Good news!

More cash for the Chesterfield, and more signs of a return towards normality?

Editorial

More good news! Look at the upper picture on the back cover of this magazine and you’ll see George Rogers, longstanding WRG volunteer and now full-time project manager for the Chesterfield Canal restoration, pointing at a rather nondescript bit of dirt-track. The caption gives a clue as to what the picture’s about: at some point in the not too distant future there will be a canal through here. And yes, it’s another good news story about the confirmation of major funding enabling an important piece of canal restoration to go ahead.

In this case it’s over £5m out of the Government’s Towns Fund allocation to Staveley Town, and (together with smaller financial contributions and materials in the form of a big heap of free clay) it will achieve half a mile of complete restoration. At an equivalent rate of well over £10m per mile, that might sound rather steep, but it’s not an easy length. It involves a brand new lock (to be built roughly where George is pointing in the picture, once the dirt track and a fair amount of the ground under it have been removed), plus two new bridges including a 35m span to carry the Trans Pennine Trail over the canal, plus a huge amount of earthworks to raise the canal channel (which has been hit badly by mining subsidence) as it leads out of Staveley and onto the Puddle Bank, a large embankment across a valley.

This section represents one of three major obstacles to reopening the final eight miles from Staveley to Kiveton Park, and recreating the full 46-mile canal from the Trent to Chesterfield. The other two major obstacles are the houses built on the route in Killamarsh, necessitating a tricky diversion with new locks (or lift), and the collapsed Norwood Tunnel. But in between them are some much less badly damaged sections, and there’s every likelihood that there will still be a role for volunteers while professional contractors tackle the big engineering jobs,

The same is true on the Montgomery Canal. As we reported in issue 310 it’s been awarded £15.4 from the Governments Levelling Up Fund to carry out much of the work to reopen the length from the Welsh border at Llanymynech to Welshpool. But at the same time (see our progress pages) the Shropshire Union Canal Society’s volunteers are continuing to work on the English length from the current limit of navigationat at Gronwen to Crickheath Wharf, and have begun initial works on the next length.

At the same time, to keep the Mont restoration on track there’s also a need to rebuild the missing School House Bridge, the last bridge left to be reinstated on the English length. It’s not covered by the Levelling Up Fund grant as that only covers the Welsh length, it’s a road bridge which will need professional contractors for much of the work, and prices have been rising steeply. Hence why we’ve included an Appeal leaflet with this Navvies, asking you to contribute to raising the remaining funding to get the bridge built. Back to normal? I hesitate to use the word, given the events of the past two years (and I’ll add the usual disclaimers about not being able to predict what the future might hold), but I think this issue of Navvies does represent yet another small step on the long road back towards something akin to (the new) normality.

For starters, events seem to be getting organised with a decent enough chance of not having to be changed at short notice that we’ve reinstated part of the Diary pages. It’s not quite back to the six-page blockbuster expertly collated by Dave Wedd that we ran pre-pandemic, but it’s a start. And as our London WRG News article shows, it’s not just about canal camps - the mobile groups are getting back to having a regular calendar of work parties. Canalway Cavalcade is back to Little Venice after two years off. There’s even talk of a Reunion / Bonfire Bash. Oh, and the ‘Infill’ page in Navvies is back! Let the good times roll!