Bridgewater Canal Breach

[Cheshire cat]

I would say that expecting any heavy equipment to get anywhere close to the breach before April is wishful thinking. There's no easy access and the fields are under water. Farmers were attempting to put the stop planks in at Back Lane Bridge, Dunham Village this afternoon. They were in but the seal was very poor. 

[Chris Lowe]

1 hour ago, LBClerk said:

Residents of Little Bollington demand an urgent public inquiry into this terrible disaster. There are many questions to be answered. What caused the canal collapse? How was it possible for this to happen? Were lessons learned and adequate measures taken after the canal collapse of 1971? Was regular and adequate maintenance undertaken? Were regular inspections made? Who carries responsibility? And who will foot the bill for rebuilding and for compensation to all affected?

From what I've seen on the news the entire area was already flooded & the repair bill is down to the canal owners.

[Cheshire cat]

The area to the East of the canal floods every winter. The Bollin uses its floodplain. Whether it would if the channel under the canal was wider / deeper is a moot point. The last time I saw it as bad as today was 2021. Fields both sides of the canal were flooded then. Water was passing through the tunnel but immediately spilling over in to the fields and the water treatment works. 

[sniffy]

How would the Lymm side of the Bridgewater be fed now ? I presume it was mainly from Manchester, but can it be fed from the Preston brook end ?

[Liam]

10 minutes ago, Chris Lowe said:

From what I've seen on the news the entire area was already flooded & the repair bill is down to the canal owners.

Was there any mention of an old culvert that goes under the canal which may of failed? Apparently that is under Warrington Borough Council's jurisdiction so here starts the arguments!

[billh]

Just now, sniffy said:

How would the Lymm side of the Bridgewater be fed now ? I presume it was mainly from Manchester, but can it be fed from the Preston brook end ?

Can be fed from the T & M, Bridgewater is the lowest level canal apart from MSC and R.Mersey. Apart from the current problem there should be no water loss from Bridgewater.

[Liam]

1 minute ago, sniffy said:

How would the Lymm side of the Bridgewater be fed now ? I presume it was mainly from Manchester, but can it be fed from the Preston brook end ?

The Bridgewater is lower than the 3 canals it connects to. The Rochdale, Leeds & Liverpool and Trent and Mersey all drain into it. There's also a lot of land water based draining going on too which should help bring the levels back up once the breach has been secured.

[magnetman]

This looks like a culverted brook.

 

Other thing if it is there do people run their engines in gear while moored up. 

 

 

[Paul C]

15 minutes ago, Cheshire cat said:

I would say that expecting any heavy equipment to get anywhere close to the breach before April is wishful thinking. There's no easy access and the fields are under water. Farmers were attempting to put the stop planks in at Back Lane Bridge, Dunham Village this afternoon. They were in but the seal was very poor. 

Indeed, it will be an engineering challenge.

[nighttrain123]

 

13 minutes ago, Liam said:

Was there any mention of an old culvert that goes under the canal which may of failed? Apparently that is under Warrington Borough Council's jurisdiction so here starts the arguments!

 

A spit of Cheshire East covers this part of the canal. Unlucky for them.

 

https://maps.cheshireeast.gov.uk/ce/webmapping?&e=378220.01&n=364472.00&s=1600000.00&bm=oscolour

 

 

Edited January 1, 2025 by nighttrain123

[Chris Lowe]

13 minutes ago, Liam said:

Was there any mention of an old culvert that goes under the canal which may of failed? Apparently that is under Warrington Borough Council's jurisdiction so here starts the arguments!

Didn't see any marked on the old OS maps

[Liam]

10 minutes ago, magnetman said:

This looks like a culverted brook.

 

Other thing if it is there do people run their engines in gear while moored up. 

 

 

Not only that but because of the lack of mooring rings in what is a very popular visitors mooring, it's had however many years of pins bashed into it with badly tied boats swinging off them.

 

The embankment upto No 3 was declared by the old canal engineers Tommy Lloyd and Brian Hulton as the weakest part of the Bridgewater.

[Russ T]

Looks like the nearest  culvert might be at Agden brook 800m away, and then there is little bollington aquaduct, then the breach, then the river.

Edited January 1, 2025 by Rod Stewart

[Arthur Marshall]

Should the CRT supply water to the Bridgewater, bearing mind their own current supply problems on the T&M?

What usually feeds it?

[matty40s]

There was indeed a lot of rain up there...

 

Edited January 1, 2025 by matty40s

[magnetman]

before (pylon visible top edge of image)

after

 

 

 

That little brook must come from somewhere. It just appears. Maybe it is going under the canal in a little tunnel. 

 

Nature at work. 

 

Also looking closer to the canal on the satellite view there are round shapes. There isn't an old flood sluice is there? 

[MtB]

4 minutes ago, magnetman said:

That little brook must come from somewhere. It just appears. Maybe it is going under the canal in a little tunnel. 

 

Well yes, that is why everyone is going on about a culvert. The brook passes under the embankment, presumably. The flooding on the east caused a massive flow through the culvert which disintegrated and the embankment got washed away from underneath, at a guess.

 

 

 

[magnetman]

4 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Well yes, that is why everyone is going on about a culvert. The brook passes under the embankment, presumably. The flooding on the east caused a massive flow through the culvert which disintegrated and the embankment got washed away from underneath, at a guess.

Yes I know it is a culvert I wrote that in an earlier post. Its odd the brook does not come out the other side on the map. Maybe it is part of the embankment drainage or a flood sluice. 

 

. 

Edited January 1, 2025 by magnetman

[Liam]

There's a sewage works on the western side of the embankment/aqueduct. Something to do with that draining water into the Bollin perhaps? Only have phone access so can't really investigate - I'd need a bigger screen for that.

 

Interesting that it's Macclesfield Police who are trying to crowd control rubber neckers around there, I think there's a very slim part of the A56 to the east that comes under Macclesfield Borough Council.

[john6767]

1 hour ago, Cheshire cat said:

The area to the East of the canal floods every winter. The Bollin uses its floodplain. Whether it would if the channel under the canal was wider / deeper is a moot point. The last time I saw it as bad as today was 2021. Fields both sides of the canal were flooded then. Water was passing through the tunnel but immediately spilling over in to the fields and the water treatment works. 

Last April we moored on the embankment a few boat lengths from where the breach is.  At that time all the fields were under water, and you could not get through the underbridge to get the pub as the underbridge had a couple of feet of water in it.  It does seem as though it will be sometime before it is dry enough to do anything even if there is the will and all the permissions were in place.

[junior]

Early days I know, but I wonder if Bridgewater Canal Co, Peel Holdings, MSC and CRT could all get together and put on some sort of assisted passage, maybe once a week/fortnight/month and collaboratively open up the MSC, Pamona, Weaver etc to allow boat transit, perhaps with relaxed rules on the certificate of sea worthiness. 

I don't mean just for emergency passage for those stranded the wrong side of where they need to be.

 

I take it in theory this could be done? Boat lift due to close later this year I think? Could this be put back?

 

I wonder if it's something the IWA might try to bring to the table? 

[David Mack]

11 minutes ago, john6767 said:

It does seem as though it will be sometime before it is dry enough to do anything even if there is the will and all the permissions were in place.

And the money!

1 hour ago, Paul C said:

When I saw the piling collapsed inwards, I assumed that during normal (canal full) level, there is little/no force on the piling, with the weight of the water in the canal being balanced by the weight of the ground on the bank. But during the exceptional scenario of the canal being completely empty, the weight of the soil/ground (remembering it will be heavy and waterlogged too) would easily push it inwards. The canal may have failed there, or it may have failed much further downstream and the water flowed away.

The piling hasn't been pushed in by the weight of the ground behind. The piles extend way below the normal canal bed level, but as a result of the breach the canal bed has been eroded to a much greater depth and all the ground around the bottom of the piles has been washed out, leaving nothing to hold them upright.

[Jon57]

 

[Paul C]

47 minutes ago, David Mack said:

And the money!

The piling hasn't been pushed in by the weight of the ground behind. The piles extend way below the normal canal bed level, but as a result of the breach the canal bed has been eroded to a much greater depth and all the ground around the bottom of the piles has been washed out, leaving nothing to hold them upright.

Apologies, the bit I needed to see was behind the copyright notice. Now there's another video, I can see what you mean now.

[tree monkey]

2 hours ago, Cheshire cat said:

I would say that expecting any heavy equipment to get anywhere close to the breach before April is wishful thinking. There's no easy access and the fields are under water. Farmers were attempting to put the stop planks in at Back Lane Bridge, Dunham Village this afternoon. They were in but the seal was very poor. 

 

Good on the farmers for trying their best to seal the cut but it really shouldn't be up to them, let's hope this gives peel or at least the locals are able,to kick peels arse for not reacting faster