Progress
The Dig Deep initiative looks for new projects Dig Deep update: September 2003
We have not been totally idle though. On the Wilts & Berks Dig Deep have been working on two separate sites. At Chaddington (Summit) lock we have helping the local team with the completion of work on the lower wing walls, thus finishing our commitment to this site. We may get asked to help again on a one-off basis should John and his team require any specific help with the upper wing walls. Most of our efforts on the W & B have been at Pewsham Locks and Double Bridge where we have helped scrub-bash the two bottom locks and bridge and have carried out a number of exploratory excavations at the locks prior to decisions being taken on methods of restoration. We await a formal submission by W & B Trust as to which (if either?) of these two structures they wish Dig Deep to tackle.
Martin Ludgate
The Dig Deep Initiative involves five mobile working party groups (London WRG, KESCRG, Essex WRG, NWPG and WRG BITM) committing themselves to carrying out a certain amount of volunteer work (whether in the form of Canal Camps or weekend working parties) on certain restoration projects in southern England that have been adopted as ‘Dig Deep Projects’. And thereby hopefully enabling the local canal societies that we are supporting on these projects to be able to commit funds and materials to them in the knowledge that there will be the labour to complete them.
2003 has been perhaps the quietest year for Dig Deep since it started it 1992. This has not been through a lack of willing volunteers, as each of the five visiting groups remains committed to the concept. Rather it has been a year where there seems to have been a dearth of suitable work sites requiring regular input from visiting groups and which offer the range of construction work which a Dig Deep project needs.
Dig Deep on the Wilts & Berks: one project at Chaddington (Summit) lock comes to an end...
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