Frequently asked questions
Who is LHCRT? | How is LHCRT funded? | How is the canal built?
What is the Big Pipe? | When will it happen?
Can I visit? | How do you help biodiversity?
How can I help?
Who is LHCRT and how are you run?
The team behind LHCRT is all volunteers, we don’t have any paid staff and we don’t have an office, we all work from home or on site. Some of us are retired and some have day jobs as well as our volunteering roles.
Who’s who and how to contact us.
Our volunteers have a wide range of skills and expertise, which we draw on to carry out the restoration. Where we don’t have the skills, we employ contractors or consultants to help us. We are also supported by many corporate volunteer groups, who come to spend a day out of their offices as part of their corporate social responsibility
Volunteer with us
It’s early days to answer this. At the current time it’s unlikely that CRT will manage it when it becomes part of the canal network. LHCRT may need to continue as the managing organisation with separate licence fees to navigate our canals.
Read our Post completion strategy.
How is LHCRT funded?
We have to find every penny in order to restore the canals. Our ‘bread and butter’ income is membership fees, regular fundraising events, our annual Grand Prize Draw and our 500 Club. These are our regular income streams, but they fall very short of what we need.
Our regular income is supplemented by donations, tribute appeals and legacies from our supporters and we run various appeals usually annually.
In addition to these, we attend various events throughout the year and we have our online shop and Teemill store – all proceeds from sales from the shop go towards the restoration fund.
So to fill the gap, we have to submit bids to funding agencies. The criteria for funds vary between the different funding agencies. It could be funding to ‘transform people’s lives’ or for ‘environmental/biodiversity improvements’ or ‘intergenerational/youth activities’. We have to find a suitable ‘fit’ for each bid we submit.
Read our Financial strategy.
In the past, we have had major grants from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Manifold Trust and other specific sources.
For example:
– Summerhill was financed by £336,000 from Social Investment Business Group.
– Restoration of Gallows Wharf in 2018 was greatly assisted by a Staffordshire County Council’s Local Community Fund grant of £1,850 and £2,800 at Falkland Road.
– The Fosseway Heath Nature Reserve and Wetlands project 2017/8 has been significantly funded by the Postcode Local Trust grant of £18,500.
– Darnford Moors Ecology Park was funded through ERDF and HS2 CEF, The Biffa Award and Wesleyan Foundation.
We have so far had difficulty persuading Heritage Lottery Funding (HLF) that the canals are a very significant part of our heritage, especially as we have no buildings above ground. We are continuing to try to apply to this source for funding.
How is the canal built?
The canal is built using a combination of materials and techniques to create a stable, watertight channel. The sides of the canal may be constructed with steel piling, traditional brick walls, or gently sloped banks lined with protective materials. The base is typically made of concrete or a specialist lining to prevent water from leaking into the ground.
Each section is designed to suit the local landscape, engineering needs, and environmental considerations—balancing durability with biodiversity and heritage.
We are building the canal to have a depth of 1.5 metres. In some areas this will be through a deep cutting.
Smaller completed sections (or pounds) can be slowly filled by rain over time. In the longer term, Canal & River Trust have agreed that the water will come from the existing canal network.
In 2018, we had to urgently move 11 precast concrete tunnel sections, which had been stored at Hazel Lane Colliery. We had known that at some stage this site was likely to get planning permission for redevelopment, and we are most grateful to the Misra Brothers for the many years for which they gave us free storage. Once we received notice that we had to move them, we had to decide where they were going and prepare the site to be able to not just provide storage space but more critically to ensure that all civil engineering calculations were accurate so that the site was safe for such heavy cranage.
Also, we needed them (a) on our land, to avoid any storage costs and (b) ideally close to where we will use them – in this case to get under Darnford Lane. So, while we had work parties and machines at Darnford Lane it was sensible to pick up on other unfinished work there, too.
Read more on ‘The Big Lift’ https://lhcrt.org.uk/news/news_Mar05_2018.html (archive)
In the past, we have started sections where we own the land (or have legal permission to occupy the land). We have also started work when funding has allowed. (In all cases of funding bids, we submit the bid and wait several months to hear whether we are successful or not. When we are successful, there is always a time limit within which the funds must be spent.) This can result in looking like our work is “piecemeal and unplanned”, but it is far from it.
Our operational plan sets our aim to get as much of the Lichfield Canal into water as possible and do this in a logical, progressive way, extending out from Borrowcop Locks Canal Park and Darnford Moors. In this way we can ultimately secure a reconnection to Huddlesford Junction.
It’s difficult to answer that. We have several sites around Lichfield in various stages of restoration and the amount is increasing all the time, adding to the opened sections of the Heritage Towpath Trail.
As of 2024 about 2.34 miles or roughly 1/3 of the 7 miles has a good freely walkable towpath trail but only about 0.75 miles is in water.
View our maps page to see the walks.
What is the Big Pipe?
The Big Pipe was installed in the 1960s to carry both steady spring water and storm runoff through the old canal route after it was closed to navigation.
The original canal used to be fed by a base flow of clean, steady spring water coming from underground near St John’s, around locks 20 to 22. It also helped collect rainwater and runoff from southern Lichfield whenever it rained heavily.
When the canal was closed to navigation in 1954, a ‘waterway’ had to be replicated to continue carrying both the steady base flow and the heavier flows during rainfall. So, in the 1960s, a 27-inch diameter Big Pipe was installed in the canal bed, downstream of Shortbutts Lane. This allowed the canal channel to be filled in, while still providing a way for surplus water to safely flow into the Darnford Brook, near Borrowcop Locks and onward to Huddlesford.
As we restore the canal, we therefore have to remove sections of the Big Pipe but also contend with the base and peak flows (during and following rainfall) as part of our construction methodology.
Borrowcop Locks Canal Park
We have already removed the pipe from locks 25 and 26, and pounds 25, 26 and 27, and visitors can see much of the canal back in water.
Tamworth Road Narrows
Our volunteers have been working hard on restoring the canal at Tamworth Road Narrows towards Cricket Lane. Where the Big Pipe is not within the line of the new channel, we have retained it but made it obsolete and it is now a permanent fixture. It will also aid the hydraulics for boats passing through the narrows at the former site of lock 24 by relieving the hydraulic pressure caused a boat travelling through a narrow channel and displacing the water ahead of it.
As we continued construction of the canal towards Cricket Lane and onwards towards London Road, we have removed the Big Pipe, but need to manage the flows that pass through it. We have excavated and constructed the channel wall on the opposite side to Tamworth Road and constructed the concrete channel base. We then built a temporary weir from the Big Pipe, close to Cricket Lane, diverted the water flow into a temporary plastic pipe before removing sections of the Big Pipe. Once the channel wall and concrete base on the Tamworth Road side is completed, the flow can discharge onto the concrete bed where it will flow downstream.
Gallows Reach and Gallows Wharf
In summer 2024, we were granted planning approval for the section from Cricket Lane to London Road. Here, we are using a similar approach. We will retain the pipe where it lies outside the new line of the channel and will remove it where we need to, working round it as best we can. We will then take it out and divert the water flow, to complete the work. Work at Gallows Wharf started early in 2025 and we are working from here towards Cricket Lane. At Cricket Lane there will be a new lock 24, where we are planning to incorporate the Big Pipe as part of the bywash for the lock. You can see the full timeline on our Gallows Reach page.
St John’s Grange
At St John’s Grange, the Big Pipe was diverted around lock 23, as part of the works on the new by-pass road. Ultimately, the diverted pipe will be routed into the new canal, just after lock 23. We will apply for planning permission for this section in 2025.
Watch the videos of the Big Pipe story:
The Rise and Fall of the Big Pipe Part 1 – The Story
The Rise and Fall of the Big Pipe Part 2 – Moving On
Court above the Cut: Lichfield’s Big Pipe
When will it happen?
The answer is that if someone or some organisation gives us an estimated £40m it could be done in another five to ten years! (That assumes all planning applications and land transfers are completed quickly)! But with limited ‘regular’ income, it’s impossible to answer. (Read on for more details of funding.)
We can only add water to sections, which can be properly contained. This will usually be between locks where we can add stop planks. We try to add water as soon as we can but it is not always possible for every section.
Read our operational plan for more details.
We are aiming to connect the footpath over the M6 Toll aqueduct first, before the canal itself is completed, in order to provide a fully connecting extension to the Heritage Towpath Trail.
The processes of seeking planning permission and registering our land with Land Registry have brought up some issues. Midland Expressway Limited who operate the motorway will require a raising of the parapets to the Aqueduct (more significant costs) and there are some very small parcels of land which require to be transferred into Trust ownership.
Much as we want to make that link to Brownhills for the community benefit, our fundraising and bureaucracy negotiating priorities are currently under pressure on other sections of the canal.
See Lichfield Canal Aqueduct and Summerhill.
We have been required to stop work since our planning application for the work there (which included the A51 and A38 crossings) was objected to by Highways England (HE). HE raised questions, and we are having to submit further reports before the planning application can be fully assessed and, hopefully, approved. Fingers crossed, and after many, many hours of emails, conversations and gritting of teeth by our stalwart, but behind the scenes experts, we hope we are will be able to resolve the issues before too long and resume work… when funding allows.
Darnford Park – The story so far https://lhcrt.org.uk/articles/restoration_darnford_park.html (archive)
We have limited volunteer person-power and so are concentrating on the restoration of the Lichfield Canal at the present time. We have a regular workparty helping Canal & River Trust as owners, which is keeping the canal tidy and in water as a feeder to the Staffs & Worcester Canal and we are working on planning applications and land acquisitions, but we are not actively carrying out restoration at the current time.
If you would like to be involved in the Hatherton Canal, please get in touch as we would like to set up a separate group to concentrate in this area.
Can I visit the canal?
We always try to add a safe walking route to the sections of canal we are restoring, so that you can watch our progress. However some sections of the route have no access, as they are still in private ownership or can’t be accessed without a tunnel in place.
You can see the sections which can be walked along, for each canal, with suggested diversions where necessary on our maps pages:
Lichfield Canal Maps
Hatherton Canal Maps
As we are actively restoring the Lichfield Canal, it sometimes means some disruption. For your safety, we occasionally need to close sections of the towpath while work is underway.
Check the latest closures and restrictions: Path closures
You can see lots of different maps on our maps pages:
Lichfield Canal Maps
Hatherton Canal Maps
The Lichfield Canal was formerly known as the Ogley Locks section of the Wyrley and Essington Canal and stretched seven miles from Ogley Junction on the (BCN), dropping through 30 locks to Huddlesford Junction on the Coventry Canal.
Most of the canal will be along the original route, but there are some new diversions due to development on the route, before it was protected.
An overview of the Lichfield Canal.
The restored route of the Hatherton will run for seven miles through 17 locks. From Hatherton Junction it joins to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, to the Lords Hayes Branch where it joins the Birmingham Canal Navigations near Pelsall Common.
An overview of the Hatherton Canal.
How do you help biodiversity?
Canals act as “nature highways,” connecting fragmented landscapes and allowing species to move safely between urban and rural areas. They can support a wide range of plants and animals—including kingfishers, herons, dragonflies, amphibians, and even endangered species like the water vole.
Restored canals also help reverse biodiversity loss by:
– Providing freshwater habitats and nesting areas
– Supporting ecological corridors through towns and countryside
– Enhancing green infrastructure and resilience to climate change
– Offering safe routes for wildlife to migrate, feed, and breed
In short, canals serve both people and nature—bringing wildlife into our communities and helping ecosystems thrive
We try very hard to leave all existing trees in place, but very occasionally we need to remove trees which are diseased or are a health and safety risk or are in the line of the canal.
Our policy is to plant trees and hedging, wherever we can, along the canal route, so we always plant far more trees than we remove. For example, in 2021 we planted over 60 native trees of at least 1.5m height but we removed only six.
Furthermore in 2021 we planted 1,000 hedging saplings, which made the total hedging saplings planted, and subsequently carefully tended, in 2017-2021 to over 5,000.
Yes, during the summer months we follow No Mow May, Let it Bloom June and Knee High July and therefore do not cut back wildflowers, nettles and seeded grasses because of their importance to pollinators and birds. Wildflowers are left to go to seed and are shaken when after they die back to optimise their reseeding.
However there are important exceptions – we will keep clear towpaths and trails that are open to the public and will follow a proactive schedule of weeding/tidying/clearing of those paths (including a 0.5m margin).
How can I help?
There are lots of ways to help, but the best way is to become a member of LHCRT for a small subscription of between £10 and £15 per year: Membership
There are many ways that businesses and organisations can get involved:
– Become a business or group member of the Trust and you will have have the opportunity to advertise in our members’ magazine.
– Book a volunteering day.
– Sponsor one of our events – get in touch.