The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) grant of £15,000 towards completion of the aqueduct over the M6 Toll motorway was reported in CBW35 and the cheque was presented to our Chairman Brian Kingshott by Tony Harrison, Chairman of the IWA Restoration Committee, and Liz Payne, IWA Deputy Chairman, at the Crick Boat Show on 24th May.

Kingdom Tours are well known for organising holidays on waterways around the world for IWA, Waterways World magazine, and others. In the spring each year they stay nearer to home, and this May Bank Holiday weekend they visited our canals. A party of 35 canal enthusiasts gathered at The George Hotel in Lichfield to enjoy a packed itinerary, walking almost everything that could be walked and visiting the rest of our sites by coach.

Conducted by Phil Sharpe and Mike Smith, they visited most of the Lichfield Canal on Saturday 3rd May, including Ogley Junction, the aqueduct site, the Boat Inn and Coppice Lane. After lunch at Muckley Corner they walked down from Fosseway Lane to visit the Sandfields Pumping Station, where Chris Pattison gave them a potted history and tour of the historic Cornish Beam Engine. Another walk from Shortbutts Lane led down to Tamworth Road and then it was on to see Darnford Lane. On Saturday evening Bob Williams entertained them with his computer-based audio-visual presentation on the restoration.

The preserved Cornish Beam Engine at Sandfields Pumping Station (Photographs by Chris Haslewood)

On Sunday they toured the Hatherton Canal, including viewing the new culverts at Churchbridge and Walkmill Way, and from Calf Heath the towpath was walked to the Roman Way and lunch. The afternoon itinerary included a walk from Chasewater to Anglesey Wharf, a visit to the Forest of Mercia Visitor Centre and a ride on the Chasewater Railway, before returning via the remaining sites on the Lichfield Canal at Pipehill and Huddlesford Junction.

Culvert 155 ("The David Suchet Tunnel") at Churchbridge
(Photo by Phil Sharpe)

Helping to Repel the Second Armada Recently, you may have read in the weekend supplements or magazines of concern being expressed over the threat to the survival of our natural British bluebell. (These are a protected species and to take bulbs from the wild is illegal, although collecting seed is not). As a result of this, garden centres and suppliers are now importing a Spanish variety for sale to gardeners all over the country.

Not only do Spanish bluebells differ in appearance to ours but they are stronger, and unfortunately they happily interbreed (no race relations problem here!). This produces a more vigorous hybrid and results in a threat to the existence of our native variety. So great is the concern that a countrywide survey has been conducted through the Internet to establish where the remaining British colonies still survive and flourish. In conjunction with this, I visited Hopwas Hays woods, between Lichfield and Tamworth, in late April, and was delighted to find a beautiful carpet of intense blue - all British with not a Spaniard in view! This is a magical sight in the early morning; one well worth a visit next year. By coincidence, the Hopwas Woods are only a few kilometers from our Darnford Lane site where several years ago an area adjacent to the now abandoned Lock 29 was replanted with a variety of broad leafed trees. These have now settled in well and are flourishing close by the lift bridge. The woodland plants below are also beginning to regenerate but no bluebells yet, native or foreign.

A copy of a scan of pressed bluebell flowers - English on the left, Spanish on the right.

This would appear to be a good opportunity to help with the native recovery and we hope by the time you read this, members of the Environment Support Team will have collected seed from Hopwas and sown this at Darnford. One small step for British bluebell recovery.

How long can you hold your breath? Three minutes maybe.. but 3 months is unlikely, so we would like to share with you in this issue an exciting new prospect for a really major grant currently being negotiated.

Members will recall that after lengthy deliberations, we were awarded a European Regional Development Fund [ERDF] grant of £267,250 in November 2002 (CBW 34, p.27) specifically for work on the Hatherton Canal Regeneration Project. This was based on the extra value put into two canal culverts under new road-works qualifying as match funding. A large part of this grant is now in the bank with every effort being put into achieving the aims of the project to draw down further sums for expenditure in the current eligible period.

The exciting new prospect reared up suddenly in May when Government Office for the West Midlands proclaimed that after that month, retrospective project expenditure would no longer be taken into consideration. This meant that the opportunity to use the £500,000 or so being spent on building the Lichfield Canal aqueduct would not qualify as match funding for any further grants. Feverish activity went into drafting an urgent application for possible work on parts of the Lichfield Canal which are in the qualifying ERDF "Objective 2" area - only to be told that new bids would not be accepted until next year. Panic!

Capper's Lane Bridge

In March, we had established the principle of using the cost of the aqueduct over the new motorway as match funding for a possible grant to reconstruct Capper's Lane Bridge at the eastern end of the Lichfield Canal. Fortunately, this was just a day or two before paying the first bills for work on the aqueduct which enabled the retrospection qualification to be confirmed!

With a refreshingly open approach from GOWM ahead of new paperwork, they decided that although the Lichfield Canal is in a different "Objective 2" area, it should be attached to the Hatherton Canal as an already well-documented linear project. This would accelerate the process by simply extending the existing ERDF grant with minimal paperwork. Also, GOWM would look to applying the maximum percentage to lever sufficient grant to commission the bridge rebuilding work from Staffordshire County Council this year. The point is, if we don't spend the grant money this year, it disappears for ever. So we are urgently finalising details to secure up to £500,000 to start the work soon.

The 13th Annual General Meeting was held at Whittington Village Hall on Saturday, 26th April 2003. The meeting was well attended in a very happy and positive atmosphere. After the formal business and refreshments Bob Williams presented the latest version of his ever-popular and informative road-show. This included photographs taken of the aqueduct that very morning. As always, we are grateful to the Marketing Group for making the meeting such a pleasant occasion and to Phil Sharpe for dealing with the business side so efficiently.

The day was made very special by the visit of Vice-President, David Suchet. David was only able to commit himself a few days before and we were delighted that he was able to spend another whole day with us. We took him to view the aqueduct and view progress since his previous visit in February. We then took him to all the other Lichfield Canal sites and then on to Huddlesford. David spent time with leading members of Lichfield Cruising Club and enjoyed a drink in their bar after looking at the stretch of canal which is currently Club moorings. Then it was on to "The Plough" for lunch before moving on to the AGM at Whittington.

As always, David inspired members with a rousing call to continue the battle and complete the restoration. He was presented with a historic windlass which had been obtained and specially prepared by Laurence Hogg as an early birthday present. David then presented carriage clocks, on behalf of the Trust, to Denis Cooper and John Horton who were stepping down as Directors after very long service.