Flooding on the Rochdale

[Mac of Cygnet]

As I predicted, they are pulling out all the stops. The Rochdale is now open (sort of). You can get through, Here is the latest situation:

 

 

UPDATE (28 June 2012): We are delighted that the boat that had been stranded across the canal near lock 12 was successfully removed during works completed last night. This means that tomorrow we will reopen the canal to through navigation subject to restriction as noted below. There is still a huge amount of work to do to get the canal back to normal and we will work towards that over the coming weeks. In the meantime we would like to thank customers for their patience while we have been working on the problems caused by the flooding.

 

The canal will be fully open to navigation except between Locks 12 and 13 where the lock landings are heavily silted and unusable for accessing/ egressing boats. We will man these locks for any boats arriving here between 12noon and 2pm each day – 7 days per week. Outside these hours the locks will be locked shut. It is not safe for customers to try to use these locks without assistance in their current condition.

 

Throughout the length that has been affected by the flooding it is possible that customers will encounter underwater hazards that we have not identified in our surveys. We ask customers to proceed with caution in the length from Lock 11 to Lock 19 and advise us of any problems that they have. The canal towpath remains in poor condition at many locations throughout this length and is closed. We would ask customers to respect the exclusion fencing that is being erected at sites along the towpath. The surface can very slippery too. We are developing a programme of restoration works for the towpath but this is only at a preliminary stage at present.

 

This notice will remain in place until we have developed temporary measures to allow us to overcome the problems with the silted landings when we will update again and as work commences on the wider repairs to the towpath.