Sankey Canal progress - and link to LL?

Reprinted from "Inland Waterways International" News

ST. HELENS Council is leading a new partnership dedicated to restoring and extending the Sankey Canal, the first industrial canal in the UK. The anticipated costs of this long-term project are estimated to be upwards of £100 million. The Sankey Canal Restoration Society, the North West Development Agency, and the neighbouring councils of Halton, Warrington, Wigan, Knowsley, and West Lancashire are all committed partners in this major venture, along with BW, who have been commissioned to carry out an initial study into potential routes and obstacles.

This research will also gauge the potential economic benefits to be derived from restoring the full length of the original Sankey Canal and digging a new link to connect the Sankey with the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, and so on to the national inland waterway network.

Where this link will rank in the list of new construction projects under consideration in the UK is uncertain, but before declaring this to be a non-starter, look where we are today: just six years ago, a short new cut and lock at Lapworth seemed daring. Now we have the Millennium Ribble Link and Falkirk link both in operation, while planning is well under way for the Bedford Milton Keynes link and the new cut required for the Hatherton/Lichfield restoration project across Cannock Chase. Then there is the fascinating project for a broad-beam route from north to south by restoring and linking up several Fenland waterways (seen to be a more viable alternative than broadening the Leicester Arm of the GU) and, not far from the Sankey, the idea of a 14km link from the Caldon Canal to the Macclesfield Canal at Bosley.

How many of these bold new schemes can be supported and prove sustainable in the long term? BW's educational effort is aimed at ensuring renewal of the population of boatowners making the lifestyle choice in favour of the canals as their preferred mode of transport, since they determine the attractiveness of the scene for all other uses. From this standpoint, it is clear that effective percolation of narrow boats throughout the network, reaching the parts that would otherwise see little animation, could be a winning strategy.

	On June 29 the nb Earnest, owned by Neil Arlidge, was the first narrow boat for over a century to enter the Sankey from the Mersey through Fiddler's Ferry Lock. Here the boat is seen the following day entering the canal from the Mersey at Spike Island, Widnes.
See the story of the trip at: www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/Tour_03/Tour03_10.html, www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/Tour_03/Tour03_11.html and www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/Tour_03/Tour03_12.html

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