What's happening
? What's happening
?
At the end of May TAG were invited to attend the launch of the Bridgewater Way project at the new Brindley Arts Centre in Runcorn. Led by Peel Holdings as ultimate owners of the canal, and the Bridgewater Canal Trust (Manchester Ship Canal Company plus the eight borough councils along the route), there is also close involvement in the project from Sustrans, Mersey Basin Campaign, North West Development Agency, Arts Council, Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Union.
The
entire 39 mile length of the Bridgewater Canal towpath is to be
‘enhanced’ to encourage cycling, safe routes to schools, new public areas of
interest, sculptures (of course !) along with 130 new or improved access points.
Phases 1a and 1b deals with the length from the current terminus at Waterloo
Bridge in Runcorn, to Bates Bridge on the edge of the town where resurfacing
will make it easier for wheelchair users and people with prams etc. These phases
are being paid for by the Safe Routes to Schools programme being run by Sustrans
using Dept of Transport money, and future phases will be taken on as and when
money becomes available.
The promoters envisage (claim ?) half a million new visitors every year, £6m new income to the local economy and the creation of 250 new jobs. Gordon Pennington (Bridgewater Canal Trust) and Mike Butterworth (Peel Holdings) made brief speeches as did John Grimshaw (Sustrans chairman) before we adjourned to the canalside where a brief musical interlude from members of Walk the Plank theatre group was followed by Messrs Pennington and Grimshaw being ridden down the towpath on the back of a tricycle taxi (pictured), en route to unveiling some ghastly ‘Bridgewater branding’ (as the marketing teams describe it) from the footbridge.
It is true that the canal towpath into Runcorn is underused and with the Halton Waterways initiative being launched by local canal societies, it is good to see signs that things will improve. We shall obviously need to keep an eye on the extent to which Sustrans (as the one with most finance to bring to the party) make the balance between the pedestrian and cycling aspects of the route.
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On the 12th
May 2005, the Iron Mountain Trail was launched at the Blaenavon World Heritage
Site and is an 16km figure-of-eight walk that takes in part of the Monmouthshire
& Brecon Canal around Llanfoist where Hills Tramroad drops down off the
hillside. A leaflet about the walk can be obtained from Torfaen County Borough
Council on 01633 640066. The cost of
developing the Trail maws around £120,000, the funding coming from HERIAN
Heritage in Action, the Wales Tourist Board and the Welsh Development Agency.
On 17th September 2005 there is a walk along the entire length of the trail, starting at 10.30 from Keepers Pond in Blaenavon, raising funds for Macmillan Cancer relief nurses.
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The
M62 floating towpath on the Rochdale Canal is one step nearer. At the
beginning of May the completed towpath pontoon was sitting in its ‘layby’
immediately north of the motorway crossing but with no obvious sign of imminent
fixing into the bridgehole. It would seem that it is to be fixed onto the
western wall as the plans originally showed. This is technically the ‘wrong’
side as the towpath is on the eastern bank, so the walker will have to cross the
bridges immediately to the north and south of the motorway to access new
sections of path leading to the pontoon. There is no sign of any works having
been started on the new lengths of path up the western bank although they are
usable at present, so upgrading them should not be a long job.
Subsequent to writing the above, the recent breach of the canal downstream of the M62 at the Irk Aqueduct near Mills Hill, has further decimated what little traffic there was on the canal, and looks likely to further hold up the fitting of the floating pontoon. A letter to the Rochdale Observer recently despaired at the waste of money spent on re-opening the canal, and the low priority that repairs seem to be accorded – though the accusation that “a more popular canal” than the Rochdale would have had a breach the severity of Mills Hill repaired in a couple of weeks is somewhat unfair on BW. The correspondent does however highlight the unfortunately missed opportunity to accommodate Yorkshire boaters wanting to get to the IWA National Festival on the Bridgewater Canal in August. An article in the Oldham Advertiser does point out that nothing has happened on site for two months since the breach, BW’s Stephen Pugmire saying that “we don’t know when the design reports will come back”.
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Problems
on the River Weaver in Northwich where the old Riversdale Swingbridge
across the river behind Hunts Locks (which are on a navigable cut) was closed in
November 2004 by owners British Waterways, following serious defects revealed in
a safety inspection. Because this bit of river is not itself navigable and the
path over the bridge is not a right of way, neither BW nor the council have any
statutory obligation to repair it, though it is a very well used route and links
the paths on either side of the river. It is the bridge’s use by children
going to and from the nearby John Deane’s College that is likely to maintain
the pressure on both organisations to pull a solution out of the bag, as the
alternative route now being utilised is not considered to be ‘a safe route to
school’.
The council have suggested that BW dedicate the bridge as a right of way, which then puts the onus on the council themselves to find the money for it. Given that many of the connecting paths are rights of way, and that the bridge is of no operational value to BW, it seems hard to think why BW would want to oppose this.
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We
have noted the burgeoning enthusiasm for the remains of the Coalisland Canal in
Northern Ireland, and it was good to note in the IWAI’s Inland Waterway
News that over 300 people took part in a walk along the canal …. on 28th
December. That really is quite some achievement for three days after Christmas.
The recent (and first) AGM of the IWAI’s
Coalisland Branch (formerly it was the independent Friends of the
Coalisland Canal) noted that recent works on the canal included towpath
improvements, seats, signage and access gates all courtesy of Dungannon and
South Tyrone Borough Council.
The picture shows the canal's largely infilled terminal basin in Coalisland, dominated by Stewart's Cornmill which stood between the two main wharves.
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Ex-Gloucestershire wicketkeeper Jack Russell opened the new Spine Road Bridge across the Thames & Severn Canal near the Cotswold Water Park. The £500,000 scheme means that walkers and cyclists can access the water park without having to cross the busy spine road.
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And if you think that sounds a lot of money, the half as much again, a whopping £750,000 is being spent on refurbishing the Primrose Hill pedestrian bridge No 10, on the Regents Canal. The original 1906 bridge was to provide a link between Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park, but the bridge was realigned fifty years ago and widened to accommodate pedestrian traffic for London Zoo. The new scheme will effectively ‘un-do’ the 1954 reconstruction, putting the bridge back on its original alignment and un-widening it, as it is no longer to explicitly provide a through route to the zoo. Enhanced access to the canal towpath is also promised. But still …… £750,000 !
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The
final Inland Waterways Protection
Society walk of 2004 was an historic occasion, as it heralded the
announcement from walk organiser Pete Yearsley that it would definitely,
absolutely without any shadow of a doubt, be the last one he would organise.
Pete made his official debut as walk organiser in February 1988 when he led a
walk along the western side of the Huddersfield Narrow.
Since then IWPS have undertaken between six and eight walks a year the length and breadth of the country, at all times under the leadership of PY, though he has on occasion deigned to let others think they were in charge !! From 2005 responsibility for the walks will be shared amongst participants.
(Picture - PY leads his troops over the New Junction Canal)
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If anyone has any other snippets that may be of interest either for the Newsletter, or for this site, please get in touch with me at andyscreen @ towpath.org.uk