Working party report from the Erewash

Erewash work party report

They don’t have a canal to restore, but ECPDA’s work party have been helping maintain the Erewash - and are looking forward to supporting the Cromford

Erewash Canal

Despite not having a canal to restore the Erewash Canal Preservation & Development Association work party has never been idle. Previously concentrating mainly on the Langley Mill end of the canal we have since the first lockdown extended our scope to encompass the whole of the Erewash Canal. This has come about firstly because Oli Lockett, our contact at the Canal & River Trust, has been trying to arrange for us to assist with some basic maintenance and improvement works and perhaps more importantly because we have our own maintenance boat.

Our boat, Pentland, was acquired from CRT about three years ago with the objective of assisting with off-side vegetation control. However following regional reorganisation we were informed that this work would remain in the hands of CRT contractors so Oli sent Norman Cornwell, our Chairman, a list of 83 outstanding maintenance issues on the Erewash for us to help reduce on our regular Friday work parties. This came to the attention of Paul Webster, Customer Operations Team Leader at Swarkestone. Paul had an additional problem at Shipley Lock where the offside ground paddle chamber was blocked and a boat was required, which he did not have in the area, to assist with its clearance. Meanwhile the towing path side ground paddle had come adrift from the spear rod.

Shipley has top gate paddles but these are small and easily blocked even with the small amounts of the Canadian pond weed in the canal. We unblocked the gate paddles but instead of attacking the blocked ground paddle chamber as suggested set about recovering the detached paddle on the towing path side. This turned out to be an old wooden one that had seen better days and so we in stock (don’t ask!) A new bracket and spear rod lower end were also fitted and the lock was back in operation. We have yet to return to see if we can clear the blocked chamber as we were then requested to investigate excessive leakage at Long Eaton Lock offside ground paddle. This required a trip to the CRT depot at Pringle Lane, Swarkestone to pick up a couple of old coplastic paddles one of which we were able to reduce in size in our own workshop to suit the Erewash requirements to replace the existing worn out wooden one.

Getting Pentland to the various work sites has been made possible by some of our group turning out to move it before or after the work party. We have picked up heaps of magnet fishing debris along with a couple of shopping trolleys and several small trees which had been blown down in the recent gales that partly blocked the towing path or canal have been sawn up and removed.

Given that the majority of work party members are well into their 70’s work parties have been suspended for the duration of the second lockdown but we will be back keeping the Erewash Canal open when it is deemed safe. In the New Year we also expect to become involved in assisting our neighbours, the Friends of the Cromford Canal, in extending the navigation northwards from Langley Mill [See restoration feature in Navvies 303] so there is plenty to Dave Turner ECP&DA work party

replaced it with a coplastic one that we just happened to have keep us going for some time yet.

ECPDA