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Canal Restoration - dark days


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It seems that restoring waterways has reached a dark period at present. The impact of Covid might have a significant effect in this regards, but there has been a growing lack of support for some schemes. The fate of the Barnsley and Dearne & Dove Trust provides such an example and the activities of the predatory developers has not helped their plight.

 

It was decided in April to wind up the Trust  for the following reasons:

 

Closure of the Trust.

For a number of years now support for our canal restoration project has dwindled, and we have not had new members join for a good while. It is felt that in the current financial climate – especially now with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic – a project that was estimated to cost between £127 million and £235 million at 2006 prices is unlikely to find favour for some years to come, although keeping the possibility open we still see as a sensible way forward. However, it was a great disappointment to the Trust that despite our best efforts, the Inspector’s decision in 2019 following the public inquiry into the Barnsley local plan, supported BMBC’s view that a firm line for the restoration of the canals in the borough should not be included in the local plan. The Trust considers this to be a very short-sighted view showing no thought for the future of tourism and economic progress within the borough. It is also at variance with the position of Wakefield MDC to the north, which has adopted our consultant’s restoration line across its area and both protected that line and spent funds doing so. If Barnsley MBC had supported a line, then we think that there might have been a possibility of getting Rotherham MBC to revise their current stance on restoration of the Dearne and Dove Canal. Without that support, the prospect of a through restoration appears to be very unlikely. It is therefore with great regret that the Trust’s Council of Management (COM) has decided to wind up the Trust and cease operations. The COM considers that our remaining cash assets should be transferred to an active canal restoration project where they can be put to good, practical use. The Chesterfield Canal Trust (CTT) is thought to be an appropriate choice. We are making arrangements with the CTT to help retain the core content of the current BDDCT website as an information resource for a number of years into the future and we will ensure that a suitable home is found for all the Trust’s archives and records. We thank you for your support and interest through the years. All the necessary decisions about the formal winding-up will be discussed at this year’s delayed AGM – which will be organised as soon as it is allowed.

 

28th April 2020.

 

What will happen now remains to be seen.  

 

Other schemes are also suffering, how many will succumb is another matter. And yet in the heiogt of this dispair there are still those schemes that want and hope to succeed 

 

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7 minutes ago, NB Alnwick said:

I think all manner of voluntary projects as well as many businesses will be irrevocably harmed by this pandemic - not just here but everywhere . . .

Bicycle reconditiong should do well though at this time for the need of excersize :)

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The Barnsley Dove and Dearne project became moribund long before the Covid pandemic. It was never going to be a straightforward project - too much of the original line and structures had disappeared. If there was an opportunity, it was when lots of money was being spent in regenerating the former coalfield areas. But instead of incorporating the canal, that regeneration was responsible for a number of the blockages on the route. If there had been more interest in protecting the canal line then, then perhaps more would have survived.

At the Wakefield end the line is protected, and I believe the planning permission for the former power station site requires the canal to be reinstated as part of the development. I haven't been there for a while and I'm not sure of the current state of play, but it will be interesting to see whether that section at least does get reopened.

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9 hours ago, John Brightley said:

I think you're being unneccessarily gloomy. There are plenty of canal restoration schemes which are powering forward.

Apart from the ones already mentioned, there is also the Lichfield and Hatherton and the Derby Canal, to name but two.

Indeed.

 

https://weyarun.org.uk/content/tickners-heath-road-crossing-gets-underway

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There has always been a tension in canal restoration between dreams and reality, and over the last two decades since the glorious spurt of restoration with Millennium funding the emphasis has gone from focusing on schemes with large benefits to focusing on schemes that are cheaper to deliver. This has also led to schemes being phased far more. The Cotswold Canals in some ways illustrates this point as it straddles the two, the initial grant applications were for the whole scheme, but they came at the twilight of such massive funding awards and it is now being done in phases - it's interesting to reflect whether the Rochdale or the Huddersfield could have adapted to this new regime. 

 

The Barnsley Dearne and Dove it's in a league of it's own with engineering challenges, the feasibility study I worked on about 15 years ago faced a choice between huge aqueducts, in one instance over a kilometre long, or repeated flights of locks going up and down the valley side - this was forced by the original line being blocked in so many places. Aqueducts aren't cheap, and neither are back to back flights of locks. 

 

The picture isn't as gloomy as this might suggest though - at present my little company has 8 restoration schemes on the books, however it's significant that the only one over five miles long is in the republic of Ireland

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The BD&D always struck me as a bit "restoring for the sake of it". Sure, there was a canal there once; but if you were choosing to build a leisure-focused network from scratch, it's hardly somewhere you'd choose. Prothero and Clark said it was unexpectedly lovely, but that was 125 years ago, and the area hasn't fared well since. Maybe you can play the regeneration card, but (as @magpie patrick alludes) the engineering challenges are so vast that I can't see any remotely favourable cost/benefit ratio.

 

So it's not necessarily symptomatic of wider problems for restoration. It was always a marginal project - one that maybe might have done better in a more benevolent funding climate, but waterway funding has yo-yoed between feast and famine for many years, and will no doubt continue to do so. 

Edited by Richard Fairhurst
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"Restoration for the sake of it" is an important observation as there was a time where certain people were encouraged by the restoration movement and looked at as may as possible to restore.

 

Yet the beliefs and intentions of those who invested in the schemes must be respected. Over time there has been, it must be admitted ambitious plans.

 

The Barnsley and Dearne & Dove  did offer hope for restoration and needed the strong support of the people who got the Huddersfield Narrow and the Rochdale opened. Allowing developers to build homes across the Barnsley Canal at Walton did not aid their cause. This was a cause already challenged through the task of replacing the aqueduct at Barnsley.

 

Did the Dearne & Dove have a better prospect of restoration, linking Barnsley again with the Sheffield & South Yorkshire ?

 

There have been several other schemes that have come and gone, of course.

 

Can anybody provide updates on the following : 

 

(1) Severn improvement above Stourport

(2) The Avon Link that promised to unite the navigation at Stratford upon Avon with Leamington and the Grand Union Canal

(3) The Link from the Macclesfield Canal through Rudyard Lake to the Leek Branch of the Trent & Mersey Canal

(4) The Swing type bridge across the Derwent for the Derby to Swarkestone Canal restoration

(5) The Milton Keynes & Bedford Canal

(6) The multitudes of route options for the Wilts & Berks Canal

 

 

 

  

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