progress Lichfield Canal

Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Trust return to a worksite that WRG volunteers might remember from a couple of decades ago...

A new location this month! It has been over 20 years since any major work was carried out at the Darnford Moors section of the Lichfield Canal. With the fantastic news of £116,200 funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and HS2’s Community and Environment Fund (CEF) to create the Darnford Moors Ecology Park and get this section in water, the Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust’s teams were back on site to prepare for contractors to start work.

Before our teams could start work there was the matter of 20 years of nature to overcome! The brambles were so thick that they completely enveloped and hid all of the previous canal works. (see picture, above right)

It took many volunteer hours from visiting corporate teams, our Duke of Edinburgh volunteers and our workparty before the outline of the canal was again visible. Even when the brambles were initially cut off, the remaining stalks were so large that it was difficult to remove their long, thorny, arching and entangled canes. Many hours later and the area is thankfully now once again cleared.

The sheet piling installed by a WRG canal camp in the 1990s has stood the test of time and has just needed bit of upgrade work. The rear of the sheet piles were exposed so that sealing tape could be applied to the interlocking clutch seam. Additional anchor piles and longer three-metre tie rods have been tied into the existing waling beam, to provide additional support, before the area was backfilled up to towpath level. (see picture, below left)

On the opposite bank the batter profile has been created with specialist tracked dumpers and excavators. Blessed with good weather one weekend, some 800 tonnes of soil was moved and a 115m section of canal channel expertly re-profiled. (see picture, below right)

A part of these works to create the ecology park has included the creation of a nature trail, adjacent to the former lock 29, as well as a wildlife pond. The pond has been created by using the natural low flood plain area and the adjacent Darnford Brook, and will provide a very important all-year round boost to the ecology of the wetland area. (See picture, above)

The area will be handed over to a ground works contractor in the new year, who will create the non-permeable canal bed. Watch this space!

Meanwhile over at our Tamworth Road Narrows worksite on the south west side of Lichfield, you can really start to see what the finished canal will look like, now that a section of towpath at The Narrows has been topped out and completed. The team has advanced the dry walling against the towpath and has also created an intersecting wall with a safetyhandrail along the slope. (see picture, below)

On the construction side, work has slowed, partly due to the weather but also due to the build up of excavated spoil and not being able to export it off site. For every linear metre of canal that we create, we excavate approximately 12 cubic metres of soil. This has now built up on site and is starting to hamper our progress. Plans are afoot to get it moved.