First the good news... ...and there's plenty of it this time!
Editorial
To begin with, it has just been announced that the Birmingham Northern Relief Road (BNRR) will make full provision for future navigation where it crosses the Hatherton Canal, and there is a good chance that the threat to the Lichfield Canal by the same road scheme will also be lifted. The government - after four years of refusing to reverse the bad decision by its predecessors to make no provision for navigation, and saying that it can do nothing to help the Lichfield and Hatherton Canals has instructed the road-building contractors to include a navigable culvert for the Hatherton Canal at Churchbridge. The adjacent culvert under the A5 is already paid for thanks to the success of LHCRT's David Suchet appeal, so that leaves the Lichfield crossing. Although there is no corresponding government announcement instructing the contractors to build an aqueduct there, the Hatherton announcement benefits the Lichfield crossing to the tune of £1/4 million - because an offer of that sum from the Manifold Trust towards the cost of the aqueduct was conditional upon the Hatherton crossing also being provided. It remains to be seen whether the road-builders' agreement to provide foundations for the aqueduct, plus the £1/4M, plus whatever else can be raised in the meantime, will be enough to enable the aqueduct to be built in the very short timescale available. But it looks hopeful. So congratulations to everyone involved: to the LHCRT and all their supporters - including Chris Coburn, David Suchet and a lot of less well-known ones - for keeping up the pressure when it looked at times like there was very little hope for the canals; to all the other organisations that have been involved (including IWA, BW and The Waterways Trust who have been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work); to the government for finally having the decency to accept that they were wrong and to do something about it. The next piece of good news concerns the Cotswold Canals: the Thames & Severn Canal and Stroudwater Navigation. Some time ago, The Waterways Trust announced that this was one of six schemes that it had chosen for a detailed study into the feasibility of assembling funding for completion of restoration. (the others being the Droitwich, Montgomery, Foxton Inclined Plane, Lancaster Northern Reaches and the proposed new Bedford-Milton Keynes canal) They commissioned BW to do the study, and the results were announced on Tuesday July 3rd, appropriately during the Cotswold Camp at Valley Lock that I was co-leading: basically the study has estimated that the canals can be restored for around £82m, and that the benefits of restoration will justify the costs. And that although it will probably take 10 years to complete the job, it should be possible for 'phase 1' (from Saul to Stroud and from the Thames to Siddington) to be funded and completed within five years. Various potential funding sources have been identified, and it looks like the Regional Development Agency may be an important partner: this is good, as their predecessors English Partnerships contributed around 50% of the money for the recently-completed Huddersfield and soon-to-be-completed Rochdale restorations. So while there is no actual money on the table now, getting the RDA on-board and TWT firmly in favour has got to be good news for the long term prospects for the Cotswold Canals. Unfortunately this story got turned by the media into "BW are spending £82m restoring the Cotswold Canals over the next 10 years" - and I had to explain to a number of passers-by at Valley Lock that no, there wasn't 82 million quid on its way, and yes, it was actually worth us volunteers carrying on working there rather than knocking off on the Tuesday lunchtime of the Camp and letting BW finish the job! In fact not only is it still worth our while working there, it is all the more important that we carry on working on 'phase 2' sites like Valley Lock, so that in five years time when boats are arriving at Stroud from the west and Siddington from the east, we can show everyone the benefits of carrying on and tackling the more difficult phase 2 length in between, and convince those potential funding organisations that BW has identified that it would be £82 million well spent. The final piece of good news concerns the legendary "Mr. Mac" - David McCarthy of WRG Northwest who is now Mr. Mac MBE in recognition of his services to tea-brewing and waste-paper collecting in the north west. Congratulations from the Editor and everyone else in WRG.
Now the not-so-good news... As reported last time, the Huddersfield Canal reopened to boats over the May Day weekend, after over 25 years of campaigning and restoration work: the completion of 'The impossible restoration'. "Hang on!" I hear you cry, "how come that's the 'not-so-good news'?"
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