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Proposed restoration of M&BB above Prestolee only for narrowboats


Ian Mac

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Hi All need your help!
Its a relatively easy task.

First, some nearly really good news  A developer is proposing to restore the 1936 breach above Prestolee Locks at Nob End, Little Lever, Bolton.

 

Unfortunately the plan is only to restore it for narrow boats, even though the M&BB is a broad waterway, and the new locks in Salford off the Irwell have been created as broad locks :)


I would be good if you could all to write to Bolton Council and object to the restoration plans for the 1936 breach above Prestolee Locks at Nob End Bolton and that the restoration should be to the original gauge of the canal of 14ft 2inches or 4.32m in modern speak.

 

There are two parts which matter to the canal, first is the new bridge to access the Creams site, this is proposed to have a 2m towpath and a 3m channel. The second part is the restoration of the breach its self, where again only a 3m channel is proposed.

I believe we should object to both, on the grounds it will stop wide beam boats reaching Bury when the restoration is completed.

 

One can object online at
 

https://www.planningpa.bolton.gov.uk/online-applications-17/search.do?action=simple&searchType=Application

with the reference no. is 09775/20

 

Unfortunately they do not make it very simple!!! One has to create a login.
Go to the link above, put the reference 09775/20 into the simple search box at the bottom, and click search, this should bring up the Planning » Application Summary page for the ERECTION OF 274 DWELLINGS ON TW
O SITES
Then click the comments tab, then click login and comment, you have to create a login identity, before you can comment, and that process sends you a verification email - uhhh!
Once you have leapt these hurdles, the site has a timeout, so it is better to create your comment elsewhere and copy and past it in. Oh and you only have 2000 chars to play with! But you can repeat the process if you want more space.

 

The M&BB Canal Soc think that getting a 3m channel is the best they can get, and want to go with this. I believe otherwise and that we should all push the council, so that Bury is not excluded from getting history wide beams back, because of the short-sightedness of Bolton Council.
 

The bridge is not a major problem as the designed can be modified I believe with a floating/removable towpath which can be pulled out of the way to allow wide beam boats to get through it, and on to Bury. This should enable the developer to not have to build a huge spanning bridge over the canal, which would cost significantly more, I'm guessing.

The bridge design can be modified so that it does not have a towpath, it would be cheaper to build for the developer and either the developer could provide or  C&RT or the M&BB Canal Soc could raise the money for a floating towpath, as the final solution. In the mean time access could be via paths going up to the road from either side., which should be provided so that the local residents have easy access to the canal.
The floating towpath could be constructed of standard narrow canal boat hulls in principle with support legs, a walking deck and hand rails, giving an approximate 2m width of path through the bridge. By definition two narrowboats will fit through a 5m gap!
The termination of the towpath at the bridge abutments would have to be redesigned so that it links to the floating towpath.
Please see the Rochdale Canal passage under the M62 at Castleton, for an example of how this can be done.

 

The length through the breach can also be re-organized by doing two straight sections of 4.32m min width we really can keep it that tight, and why not? That is what the locks are. This is only another 4ft 8inches on the currently proposed 2.92m channel. Then at the intersection of the two straight lengths a rotating area can be provided which would allow full length maximum beam boats to realign for the other straight section and then carry on. They would not be able to simply sail through, but would need to be guided through as at locks, but they would get through, a slight increase of another 100mm would help but is not totally necessary.
please see brown markup on attached plan.

The realignment area can either be at the front (towpath side) or at the back away from the towpath. I personally think at the towpath side is best and a curve can be used. The architects would need to do the detail but its not far away from what is being proposed.

 

They could gain some of this extra 1.4m by pushing the northern wall back into the bank a little further. By totally removing the old offside wall. They could also shrink the towpath a bit and make the apron that supports it slightly wider, and hey presto we are there.

The area for the twist to realign the boat will be at the back of the breach area and so would not cause significant addition loading on the land slip area, and would need to be approximately another 3.3m wide at the apex of the two offside lines, I calculate.

It is easy to fix and not that much more expensive.

 

It may also be possible for volunteer labour to help. please see the Granthan canal and the Lichfield canal restorations, I for one would be keen to help.

 

Its not ideal, however it would work. It means that the costs are not running out of hand, and it's a workable solution for the developer.
Below I have added an image showing roughly how I think a 4.32m channel could be achieved through the breach area, shown in brown.

MandBB_v2.png.b5b657adbd138e2b334189b469eade6c.png

  • Greenie 1
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Have you contacted the local IWA branch and asked them to object? Also, have you contacted CRT? I thought they owned the MB & B canal?

I must say I'm not sure about a floating towpath as it would require wide boats to give notice of passage. I would have thought that engineering out the problem was better rather than building in the problem forever.

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46 minutes ago, Mike55 said:

Have you contacted the local IWA branch and asked them to object? Also, have you contacted CRT? I thought they owned the MB & B canal?

I must say I'm not sure about a floating towpath as it would require wide boats to give notice of passage. I would have thought that engineering out the problem was better rather than building in the problem forever.

If a developer is paying for the restoration, it may be that a compromise is unavoidable. The extra cost of engineering out the problem might make the development financially unviable and therefore unable to go ahead at all.

 

It might be practical if another party were willing to pay the difference between the compromise and full wide restoration.

 

I'm inclined to suggest that, for want of a slightly softer way of phrasing it, beggars can't be choosers (or at least can't demand too much).

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I am inclined to propose the opposite view, that the channel be narrowed wherever possible and economically advantageous so that the canal is only suitable for narrowboats.

The canal as a whole is not wide enough in many stretches for 2 wider boats to pass or for a 14ft wide beam to pass a moored boat .

 

Let's get what we can as soon as we can and accept the economic necessity of a narrow canal.

Edited by Tracy D'arth
Grammatical correction
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Having now looked at rather more of the documents associated with this (but not all - there are 191 of them!), I note that there is an existing bridge there which is to be demolished and replaced. Assuming that it is 4.32m wide or more (I can't find a drawing that confirms the existing width), there would be an arguable case that it should be rebuilt no more restrictive than the existing.

HOWEVER, looking at what they are going to have to do to repair the breach, any movement of the proposed towpath edge outwards will have a big impact on the slope remediation. And there isn't much point in having a 4.32m wide bridge if it is immediately followed by a 3m channel through the breach site.

One thing that I'm unclear about is that there appear to be two designs for the breach area, one using precast concrete sections (extract from that in the OP) and another just using a bentonite layer in a V shaped channel. It's not clear why there are two. The precast version seems the more robust not least because it's on piles whereas the other isn't. Either way this is a significant piece of work, which will be expensive.

Also this is all quite near the end of the canal, which is only just round the corner at Hall Lane (another part of the development). So overall, I agree we're lucky to get it repaired at all.

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On 26/11/2020 at 11:51, Ewan123 said:

If a developer is paying for the restoration, it may be that a compromise is unavoidable. The extra cost of engineering out the problem might make the development financially unviable and therefore unable to go ahead at all.

I work for a developer and that generally isn't how viabilities work. It is normal for councils to ask the developer to pay for extra items during the planning negotiation process. If the council were to insist on a 4.5m wide channel, the developer's viability would be adjusted to suit, and all that would change is the amount paid for the land purchase to the current landowner. Besides, the extra cost of creating a 4.5m channel rather than a 3m one would be very small compared to the overall budget for the scheme. Has anyone tried just talking to the developer ? It is possible that they will agree to increase the width of the channel without argument as a good public relations exercise. I must admit I'm surprised that the MB&BCS hasn't objected. Other canal societies would have - for example the Lichfield and Hatherton guys have had some notable successes in similar situations.

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I have commented on the council site, suggesting that it would prevent the L&LC Society's heritage boat Kennet from accessing that section of the canal, and mentioning the restriction to the Shropshire Union at Ellesmere Port which restricts larger craft from sailing from the Ship Canal to Chester and beyond.

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For those who are unfamiliar with the geography - the breach is between Nob End and Bury, and there is another significant obstacle between Nob End and Bury at Water Street. 
 

3 hours ago, John Brightley said:

 Besides, the extra cost of creating a 4.5m channel rather than a 3m one would be very small compared to the overall budget for the scheme. 

You don't know this site do you? 

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13 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Bury has a good market and several famous personalities.

I'm sure it does. The former Radio 1 DJ Mike Reed for example: I met him once and was impressed that he was a keen supporter of Bury football club rather than one of the more famous and fashionable teams.

   My reference was to the names rather than the actual places, hence my choice of the word "sound".

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22 hours ago, John Brightley said:

Besides, the extra cost of creating a 4.5m channel rather than a 3m one would be very small compared to the overall budget for the scheme.

That's not necessarily true. It would have been staggeringly expensive to make the M5 "tunnel" for the Droitwich restoration full-size; similarly the Rochdale under the M62 (the floating towpath). In both cases, dimensions were compromised to achieve restoration at a reasonable cost. It's a good few years since I've been to Nob End but I'm pretty sure the breach site means that, no, it's not just a case of "dig the hole a few metres wider".

 

There's a story that cruiser-size culverts were offered for the Lancaster under the M6, but the IWA at the time said "no, full size or nothing". In retrospect that was the wrong line to take - we ended up with nothing, as a consequence of which the entire line was lost north of Tewitfield. 

 

Ian's proposed solution seems intriguing and I hope they consider it, but I can 100% see where the MBBCS is coming from here.

 

(For what it's worth, I suspect wide-beam use of the MB&B top pound would be minuscule anyway. The Rochdale is a through-route and yet hardly any wide boats use it. There's a study to be done comparing the cruising patterns of narrow and wide boats...)

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