Although a lot of hours of work have been put in at the Tamworth Road site over this period, there is little to report in the way of progress. It is a case of ongoing work rather than goals achieved.
The wet weather is still causing us problems particularly at the end of pound 27 from the narrows towards the A51, where the muddy waterlogged canal base refuses to dry up. Hence the only work done down that end has been done by the 'brickies'. After they have laid three or four courses of bricks our lads have concreted between them and the redundant 'big pipe' sections, that shore up the towpath there. A very strong waterproof wall is the result. However this task is rapidly coming to a conclusion. At that point in time we can back-fill behind this wall and the towpath with soil which will look nice when it matures in the summer months to come. (A little job for the 'Green Team' there maybe?).
A lot of work has been done in Darnford Park recently, To enable extensive earth works to be done later this year, a large area of immature trees had to be cut down. Great work by Peter Buck and Tony Cadwallader and others managed this successfully without the loss of too many limbs. A large machine was hired, together with operator, and within a day all the branches off these felled trees were reduced to 'wood chips'. The earth works to be done include the construction of the Geo sound deadening earth bank alongside the A38 and the excavations for the double lock within Darnford Park.
As far as pound 25 is concerned, the dreaded mud is again holding us back, although steady progress has been made with the concreting of the base. On a very windy day, with the wind in the right direction, we had a large fire, within the pound, of all the brash and branches collected as a result of our working along the Heritage Towpath Trail from lock 25 through to Cricket Lane. The fire smoldered on for nearly a week until more heavy rain doused it totally. The towpath by the Millennium Bridge has yet to be finalized as we have still to fix the leak of water from pound 26.
That's about it for this time. Thanks to all the merry men of the Tamworth Road lot for their time and effort.
