Wilts & Berks Canal Trust Page

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Wilts & Berks Canal

We had very much hoped to be able to announce the next stage of our M4 crossing project, which would have been a grant of £870,000 plus for further design & engineering work, but although our submission seemed to have been favourably received by National Highways, the meetings required for a decision had to be postponed, so no news yet.

We now have a new CEO, Simon Caraffi – he is ex-military and has been CEO of a large hospice in Bristol for some years. At the time of writing he has been in post less than a week, so more anon! He attended an impromptu leaving party for Gordon Olson, who was presented with an inscribed bottle of his favourite tipple from the Executive Committee; a good time was had by all, some of whom had not met face to face before because of Covid!

Memorial benches have been installed at three locations to commemorate three of our volunteers recently deceased – Roy Murrell and Chris Naish in our East Vale branch, and Kath Hatton, our major fundraiser for many years for the Trust as a whole, installed on our jetty in Swindon. Here is Roy’s

In our West Vale Branch, much use has been made of corporate volunteers, who turn out, sometimes in considerable numbers to give us a hand – these happylooking people are from Thames Water

In Swindon, work has begun on mapping the profile of a stretch that was dug out for fishing but is unsuitable to be a functioning canal as it is too shallow & narrow for steel boats to pass each other, although Dragonfly can just get through, it’s effectively a one-way stretch. Here is the Trusts Head of Boats (yours truly) doing some depth sounding!

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When Dragonfly trips resumed (albeit shorter because of the canal being blockaded) in the spring. The Easter Bunny came along and was a great hit with children of all ages, giving us a very successful trip day!

In Royal Wootton Bassett Branch, new signs are springing up (as elsewhere along the line), as many long-standing signs are embarrassingly out of date; a fresh look is needed, & artist Marilyn Trew has injected some maps with a difference! She has also designed & produced other signs, including information boards at Canal Park, Shrivenham

In our MCC Branch (Melksham, Calne & Chippenham) boat trips in The Mary Archard were operated at various events and at the stretch in water at Pewsham. Thanks to various donors, work is now complete on restoring the walls of the dry dock located there. Next time we hope to have our most exciting news since restoration started!

Chris Barry Comms Secretary, Wilts & Berks Canal Trust

Future Events

Boat trips on DragonFly

Shortened trips run at weekends, and Wednesdays during school holidays, from 10.30 am - 4pm at halfhourly intervals. To book, call (but do not text) the boat team on 07401 220076 or preferably email boat.bookings@wbct.org.uk. For details of where to come please visit https://www.wbct.org.uk/enjoydiscover/take-a-boat-trip-with-us . We very much hope we shall be able to resume our usual trips once the blockade has been lifted.