KNOBSTICKS

Spring 2023

Are these Cheshire Locks volunteers trying to stay anonymous?

Photo: Margaret English regular date (3rd Thursday) is too close to Christmas, and then January was also cancelled by yet more bad weather. We had great hopes for this month, and indeed the weather stayed fine, but CRT couldn’t find any white metal paint for us (so the railings and ladders could only be scraped down but not painted). We also ran out of black wood paint with the gates half painted. Hopefully March will see good weather again AND there will be enough paint!

No room for a full report on the Cheshire Locks work party this issue, but I can let you know that it is slowly progressing. In fact we are currently working on the last pair of locks that have never been repainted by us since we started in 2012!

Other news

ve included a photo on page 5 of a bridge on the Macclesfield Canal that was recently damaged by a vehicle. I had hoped to have some news on a date for repairs, but have heard nothing yet.

Burslem Port seem to be getting a new lease of life with progress on several fronts, see the article on pages 6-7 for more information.

Our winter talks season is drawing to a close but we do have some more news on the speakers for our April talk. See the centre pages for full details of that talk, and also a reminder about our March AGM and talk.

We started work at lock 59 last August and had expected to be finished long before now. However October and November were cancelled because of bad weather. We take December off as our long term future for heritage assets, for instance by finding a viable use for buildings.

Heritage at Risk

IWA's Heritage Advisory Panel has initiated a project to identify aspects of waterways heritage at risk and volunteers are progressing this. The scope of heritage is very wide, from buildings and operational features to boats, people, traditions and skills.

The project involved identifying examples at risk in each branch area and researching their history and current custodianship and financing. Later stages will look at how we can ensure a

Volunteers are needed to carry out this interesting and vital work for our Branch. Please contact me if you are interested, experience in the subject is not essential as the HAP will provide full support and training as required. Ivor ivor.caplan@waterways.org.uk

Dear Branch Members

Since I last wrote an update for branch members in Knobsticks, I have changed jobs! As most of you know, for the last nearly 11 years I’ve been employed by IWA, while continuing to volunteer with IWA North Staffordshire and South Cheshire Branch. My paid job was an ever-evolving role, initially as Branch Campaigns Officer (getting IWA branch work parties up and running around the country), then as Campaigns Officer working on navigation and other national campaigning issues, then taking on IWA’s parliamentary activities, and eventually becoming Campaigns & Public Affairs Manager three years ago.

However, it was time for a change (although I’ll be continuing in a couple of volunteering roles) and I left IWA’ s employment at the end of January to take up a new role working for UNESCO UK. I’ll be working on a National Lottery

Heritage Funded project about World Heritage Sites and some of the other UNESCO designations that we have in the UK, but which are much less well known – Global Geoparks and Biosphere Reserves. Several of these locations overlap with the inland waterways –such as Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Ironbridge, Saltaire and Blaenavon – all World Heritage Sites, as well as designations like the Black Country Global Geopark.

Incidentally, I realised recently that I have now been volunteering for IWA in one form or another for 30 years, since February 1993 when I went along to an IWA committee meeting for the first time and got co-opted as Secretary! (I was very young at the time - a young female liveaboard boater, in fact - a rare thing at the time!). This was with the then IWA Middlesex Section of the London Branch, which later became Middlesex Branch when London became an IWA Region.

Around the same time (16/17 January 1993) I went on my first London Waterway Recovery Group weekend dig. Through London WRG I met Rupert Smedley a few months later, and we got married in 1996.

When we moved to Staffordshire in 2000 I soon joined the IWA Stoke-onTrent Branch committee (as we were then!) and have been a committee member ever since.

But enough looking back that far. Much more recently, it was good to host two visits from CRT to the branch area (you will find more detailed write ups about them elsewhere in this issue), with both visits being useful in discussing and progressing some campaigns and projects.

Chair’s Report

We were disappointed to learn recently that the reopening of Bridge 37 at Hazelhurst on the Caldon Canal has been postponed by 2 weeks, with the canal now due to open just in time for the Easter weekend.

Another disappointment recently was the announcement that the £17.1 million of money for Leek from the Government’s Levelling Up Fund doesn't include our and CUCT’s suggestion for the Leek canal basin to be incorporated into the regeneration bid, but will instead go to three projects that already exist (the indoor market, the Nicholson Institute and a new swimming pool).

It was lovely to see those of you who joined us for the annual branch dinner in January. It was good to support the still fairly new pub at Crown Wharf in Stone, where the auction and raffle raised a useful contribution to branch funds. Our many thanks to Sarah Honeysett for organising the evening and to Jon Honeysett for being an excellent auctioneer.

I look forward to seeing many of you at the Branch AGM on Friday 10th March at Stoke-on-Trent Boat Club. The official AGM Notice was published in the previous (Winter 2022) edition of Knobsticks. Meet at the Boat Club from 7:45pm, with the actual AGM at 8:00 pm, followed by a talk on the Inland Waterways Association’ s “Waterways for Today” report.

Alison Smedley Branch Chair

Appeal for Branch Volunteers

Your committee needs you! We still have vacancies for:

Sales Officer – to help co-ordinate the sales stand’s presence at local event, as well as arranging the purchasing and monitoring of our sales stock. The main event that the branch stand will attend this year is the Etruria Canals Festival (3rd & 4th June) so if anyone is willing to just help for a couple of hours on the stand over the weekend that would be great too!

Secretary – to take minutes of branch committee meetings, only 4 times a year, along with occasional formal correspondence from the branch to external bodies.

Planning Officer – to respond on behalf of the branch to any planning applications adversely affecting the local waterways across several local planning authorities (with support available from branch committee members and also from members of the Potteries Heritage Society)

Website and/or Social Media

person – to update the branch’ s pages on the IWA website (full training will be given) and to look after the branch’ s social media presence – we currently have a branch Facebook page – do check it out if you are on Facebook yourselvesand a little-used Instagram account, but potential formuch more!

We also need (non-committee roles !!)

Work party volunteers – check out the back page of this issue for details of our regular work parties on the Burslem Arm and Cheshire Locks and occasional work parties on the Uttoxeter and Caldon canals.

Alison Smedley

Technology to the Rescue!

In order to gain more knowledge of the make-up of the infill of our canal, we have engaged Moss, Naylor, Young (our consultants) to appoint and supervise a survey by the Brownfield Research and Innovation Centre (BRIC) of Wolverhampton. The first phase of this, a drone topographical survey, took place on January 5th 2023. The second phase, a lot more comprehensive than the first, took place on January 19th 2023. This comprised of a LIDAR survey of the wharf building and surrounds, which we are informed will create a three dimensional record to one tenth of a millimetre accuracy!! At the same time, numerous soil samples were taken down the length of the canal which we hope will reveal more about the nature of its infill material. We now eagerly & nervously await the result of those surveys which BRIC hope to provide in late February / early March. Watch this space!

In the meantime we learn that the new footpath and interpretation boards have been very well received by the local community. See example board above.

Work Party News

Winter means looking out the thermals and keeping busy just to keep warm! Most folks wisely kept warm indoors celebrating Xmas + New Year, so little happened until recently when Beth and her CRT “Red Hand Gang” came along and collected a van full of rubbish.

This rubbish included two supermarket trolleys and a garden sofa + numerous rubbish-filled black refuse sacks!

Shame on you Stokies!

On the same day we cleared one kerb edging to the revised line of the canal and revealed for the first time the corresponding kerb on the other side. This gives us a boundary issue to now resolve. Nothing is simple!

Work Party Dates

March 3rd + 17th + 31st

April 14th + 28th

May 5th + 19th

June 2nd + 16th + 30th

Article (& photos:) Dave Broom

Waterways for Today report - Economic benefits

Waterways for Today, IWA’s new report, has now been published and is being widely distributed nationally and locally amongst politicians at all levels to demonstrate the importance of the UK’ s inland waterways. The report provides evidence that demonstrates why waterways should be receiving full support and funding from government. It is particularly important in the context of DEFRA’s review of Canal & River Trust’s grant funding, the outcome of which will directly affect the waterways in our branch area and across the country.

In this and the next 3 issues of Knobsticks, Alison Smedley (our Branch Chair but also the author of the report while she was still IWA’s Public Affairs Manager) will be looking in detail at each of the 4 types of benefit (economic; natural & built environment; local communities; improving people’s lives).

In this article we are looking at the three key FINANCIAL benefits of the waterways.

These economic benefits include waterways contributing to the economic recovery of the country, with waterways projects regenerating both rural and urban areas and improving the lives of the millions of people who live close to them or visit them regularly.

Waterways also bring increased spend to local communities. Boat-based tourism and leisure activities contribute £2.5bn to the economy each year, with people on day trips, boating holidays and those taking part in water-based activities spending even more in local pubs, cafés, restaurants and shops.

The third economic benefit of the waterways is the savings to the NHS and social care budgets. Waterways are well placed to improve the health, wellbeing and longevity of the many people living near them, through increased physical activity and social prescribing.

IWA Vice Presidents and well known supporters of our local restoration projects, Sir David and Lady Sheila Suchet (photo © David Suchet) are quoted in the report saying that they have seen “first-hand how waterway regeneration can act as a catalyst for the wider transformation of the whole community”.

The economic benefits are extremely wide ranging, from macro-scale benefits such as helping national government to deliver post-Brexit and Covid-19 recovery programmes to smaller scale benefits within individual local authority areas.

Some statistics in the report include:

• The leisure marine industry supports 133,000 FTE (full time equivalent) jobs across the inland waterways. Many of these jobs are in businesses which are IWA corporate members including a number in our branch area who support our branch in various ways. (see photo of local firm “Canal Cruising” © Rob Frost)