Darnford Moors Ecology Park
It’s been a particularly wet July and a relatively cool August and so consequently there have been a couple of weeks when the lining contractors On Site have not actually been on site. There was also a two week period when the Waterway Recovery Group held weekly camps and so the volunteers either had a holiday or worked at the Tamworth Road site.
After a particularly heavy rainfall surface water ran off the neighbouring (higher) field and damaged a section of the completed canal. Consequently, a trench has been dug to create a bund wall and thus channel any surplus water into the base of the abandoned lock 29. Ironically this run-off water would be useful once the canal has been completed but it severely hampers the construction phase.
Phase 1 of the lining works up to the lift bridge had been completed and so it was now a matter of filling the canal from the adjacent brook. There is a pre-existing abstraction licence allowing the canal to take water from the brook, in order to feed lock 30, under certain conditions. It was always going to take several weeks to fill even this short 200 metre section of canal, as around 2,500 cubic metres of water need to be pumped. Water is being pumped from the brook using a small 110v submersible pump, fed by a petrol generator. The pump is only in use when the contractors are on site and hence, only seven hours a day, five days per week.
Lining work has progressed through the phase 2 area and onto the phase 3 area. The contractor only has another ten rolls of lining to use. The sides of the canal are then lined with a mesh and angular gravel.
In the last two weeks of August work has progressed at pace through the phase 3 area. That’s the last part, approaching Darnford Lane.
Meanwhile the trusts volunteers have been using any surplus excavated spoil material to level and widen the towpath so as to accept vehicle traffic
There is also mesh and gravel to go on the other side of the canal – after the sheet piling finishes. Unfortunately, there are high voltage overhead power lines directly above the work area and so the contractor is looking at safe working methods before undertaking this work.
Mike Babb
LHCRT Workparty Volunteer
5th September 2023
Photos by Mike Babb
