These press releases appeared in the local press recently:
Engineering Company Delivers Boost for Canal Trust
Lichfield’s canal restoration volunteers can make progress on an important part of
the project after a local company generously donated two lorry loads of building
material.
Chasetown Civil Engineering delivered bricks and concrete blocks for the work
being carried out by Lichfield and Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust at its
Fosseway Heath site.
The valuable donation will allow the Trust’s volunteers and South Staffs College students, who are receiving on-site work experience supervised by their tutors, to extend the curved wall taking the canal from the Fosseway Heath basin via a sharp turn into the Falkland Road section, and to add to the towpath wall below Lock 18.
The Trust’s engineering director Peter Buck expressed his gratitude to
Chasetown Civil Engineering, saying: “Our thanks to our generous friends and
volunteers who help the Trust in so many ways to create the Heritage Towpath
Trail on the Lichfield Canal for the community.”
The Falkland Road length leads to a roundabout on Birmingham Road under
which a culvert was constructed by the Trust in 2006/7 and temporarily buried,
and then to a proposed tunnel under the Cross-City railway line.
A railway bridge was installed here over Christmas to allow for the extension of
the Lichfield Southern Bypass, but it was not possible to install the canal tunnel
at the same time, as had been hoped, because the railway bridge work took up
all the land available.
However, the Trust received some good news when Network Rail confirmed that
the work on the tunnel will not need a closure of the railway services, but just a
go-slow while working.
Enabling work for the tunnel is planned to start after the land used for the bypass
work becomes available, but despite the temporary reprieve, the urgency is still
there.
The tunnel will have to be completed before the new St John’s housing development is completed, so the Trust’s fundraising campaign, Tunnel Vision, must continue. More than £500,000 of the £1million target has been raised, but the full costs have not been finalised. Anyone who wishes to donate should visit the Trust’s Tunnel Vision webpage Tunnel Vision Appeal.
Token Effort Boosts Lichfield Canal Trust Funds
Lichfield and Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust’s will receive a cheque for £560
as a result of its participation in Waitrose’s Community Matters scheme.
During the whole of December, shoppers at Waitrose & Partners Lichfield store
were invited to place tokens in one of three boxes representing three local good
causes.
The charities were awarded a proportion of £1,000, decided on the number of
tokens placed in each box, and LHCRT proved to be the most popular choice. The Trust has benefitted several times from the scheme, more recently in 2016.
Waitrose customers were told that the Lichfield Canal, gradually being brought
back to life from its closure 60 years ago, provides a natural corridor for public
recreation and wildlife habitats.
The Trust, led by unpaid volunteers raising its own funds, has restored some
sections in water along the south of Lichfield, and more are presently in
progress.
For example, the Fosseway Heath section off Falkland Road, close to the
Waitrose store, is open to the public at all times to show what is being achieved
in transforming natural landscapes while preserving the heritage of this local
canal in the national inland waterway system.
Huddlesford Heritage Gathering results
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that LHCRT made a profit of £8,604.67 from last
year’s Huddlesford Heritage Gathering.
The Gathering, a biennial event organised jointly by the Trust and Lichfield
Cruising Club, featured historic boats, floating traders, private boats and classic
vehicles, with exhibitors and displays on the field.
The figure was about £1,000 down on 2017’s, mostly due to the very wet Sunday
of the two-day event, but well up on the average for the last five events.
Read more about the event here.
Tom Reid LHCRT Press Agent
