Canal Boat – July 2018

62 July 2018 Canal Boat canalboat.co.uk

T

he Cotswold Canals are set to be

reconnected to the national

waterways network thanks to

provisional agreement of £10m of

Lottery funding towards a £23m restoration

funding package: that’s the big news this year

for waterways restoration, and we’ve covered

it on our news pages. In this article, we’re

going to go into the detail of what exactly that

money will buy. What’s actually involved in

spending £23m on the four-mile Phase 1b

length of canal from Saul Junction to

Stonehouse, and what will it achieve?

But first we owe you an explanation of the

various ‘phases’ that are often mentioned by

Cotswold Canals Trust and others involved in

the restoration – what are they, what order are

they being restored in, and why?

It began with an acceptance by those

supporting the restoration that (unlike the

Millennium restorations such as the Rochdale

and the Huddersfield), in the case of the

Cotswold Canals it was unlikely that any

sources of funding would come up with the

sums needed to complete the entire

restoration in one go. Sure, no individual

problem was any worse than had already been

dealt with on other canal restorations. But

with numerous main road and rail crossings, a

collapsed two-mile tunnel and several

missing lengths of waterway, and the sheer

length and complexity of the job, the cost of

reopening the Stroudwater Navigation and

the Thames & Severn Canal through from

Saul on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal to

Inglesham on the Thames added up to just too

much for a single package.

So it was divided into three: Phase 1 was the

western length from the Gloucester &

Sharpness Canal through Stroud and on to

Brimscombe Port, the former inland

transhipment basin where the gauge of the

locks changed, and where once Severn Trows

and upper Thames barges exchanged

cargoes. Phase 2 was the eastern section from

the Thames to the Cotswold Water Park, a

large leisure area created from flooded former

gravel pits. And Phase 3 was the central

section linking these two sections via the

steep climb via the many locks from

Brimscombe up the Golden Valley to

Sapperton Tunnel, then the gentler descent to

the Water Park.

Although not necessarily the easiest in

technical terms, Phase 1 had the advantage

that most of it was still in the ownership of the

original Stroudwater company, there were

enough restorable historic structures to make

it a ‘heritage’ project, and its route through

Stroud’s former mill valley would tick the

boxes for any ‘regeneration’ support. On the

down side, it was blocked by the Birmingham

to Bristol main railway line, the M5 motorway

and the A38 main road; a whole ‘missing mile’

west of Eastington had been obliterated; and a

length just east of Stroud would need to be

[email protected]

View from Saul Junction towards the first

obstruction, Walk Bridge visible in the distance

Whitminster Lock was partly

restored some years ago

but wil need further work