IWA Restoration Notes. Spring 2009

These notes are extracted from the Inland Waterways Association's Head Office Bulletins which are published monthly.

Head Office Bulletin is available in pdf format on IWA's Internet site, along with a wide range of information about the Association and the inland waterways. The website address is www.waterways.org.uk.

Cromford Canal

The Cromford Canal is to benefit from an £850,000 improvement and repairs works programme. The work will include renovating the footbridge at Whatstandwell railway station, structural repairs to retaining walls on the canal, tree felling to encourage more wildlife and repairs to the boiler at the ancient Leawood pump house.

Droitwich Canals

Over the last three months, volunteers have been trained to use traditional methods to shape over 50 sandstone coping stones. The stones have been used to finish new locks four, five and six on the Junction Canal . The volunteers' next project will be bricklaying on the spill weir in Salwarpe, where they will be relaying the brick apron. British Waterways has indicated that it is keen for local people of any age to join them on a whole range of projects that they've planned for this year.

Grand Western Canal

Devon County Council, which own and manages the Grand Western Canal Country Park, has allocated £375,000 capital funding over the next four years, for works on culverts and the creation of a reed bed. £345,000 is earmarked for comprehensive surveying, cleaning and repairs of the canal's 30 culverts, most of which are siphon culverts with difficult vehicle access.

A separate capital bid for £240,000 for the construction of a new visitor centre at Tiverton Canal Basin has also been given approval, subject to evidence that the scheme is deliverable and additional external funding obtained.

Grand Union Canal – Daventry Arm

Funding has been secured for a project to design a boat lift that could form part of a planned new canal arm for Daventry. Daventry District Council has received £75,000 from Northamptonshire Enterprise Ltd for an options study and outline design of a boat lift, which would link the canal arm with the Grand Union Canal.

Currently, there are only two working boat lifts in the UK, the Anderton Boat Lift at Northwich, Cheshire, which was opened in 1875, and the Falkirk Wheel which opened in 2002 and has now become a major Scottish tourist attraction, drawing over 500,000 visitors each year.

Despite wet weather resulting in poor ground conditions, Morrison Construction has completed the ground work on two thirds of the length of the collapsing off-side lock wall of Woolsthorpe Top Lock. After excavation of the damaged brick back to foundation level, over 70 cubic metres of concrete have so far been poured to bring the wall to just below low water level.

IWA is funding the work from a legacy and donations from the Lincolnshire Waterways Partnership, the East Midlands Development Agency and some individuals. The intention is that the off side of the lock and the field is allowed to dry out and settle for about two months when Morrison Construction intend to return and carry out soil treatment and landscaping work.

Ashby Canal

Leicestershire County Council project leaders now believe that it is likely that funding problems which have delayed work on the restoration of a waterway may be overcome. The Ashby Canal restoration is approaching a critical juncture, with a decision on a bid for funding expected within the next few weeks. A £10 million project to restore the northernmost eight miles of the canal was launched by Leicestershire County Council in 1995. Work on a 2.5-mile section between Snarestone and Measham was due to begin in summer 2008. The work would include digging out and refilling the waterway, creating a wharf in Measham and building aqueducts over Giliwiskaw Brook and Measham High Street. The plan is to link up the canal to a previously restored section, completed at a cost of £3 million in 2001 at Moira. Plans have also been agreed for a wildlife conservation area by the River Mease, at Measham. The county council's development control and regulatory board will shortly meet on to consider plans for a water storage lake, also to be used for recreation, to the east of Measham.

Wilts & Berks Canal

A proposal to create a restored section of the Wilts & Berks Canal through Cricklade and a green corridor linking the town with Swindon has been shelved because of a lack of available public funds. Promoters of the Cricklade Country Way scheme were forced to revise their plans after the project failed in a bid for a £25 million Big Lottery Fund award in 2007. Revised plans have now been submitted to North Wiltshire District Council for approval from planners.

Member Dave Croft sends this view of the last steam train to pass over the Warrington Avoiding Line on the Cheshire Lines Liverpool-Manchester route in the early 60s. It was an enthusiasts' special.

The carriages are passing over the viaduct. The buildings in the far background belong to the US Air Base at Burtonwood, which had its own siding, which went off to the right from just on the other side of the viaduct.

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