--- In [email protected], Adrian Stott <re...@...> wrote: > > Think of the K&A.
OK, I'm thinking of it... Although some lengths remained navigable but cut > off, Not much, really. Something like a mile each side of Newbury remained navigable but cut off; there may have been some local navigation on the Long Pound (Devizes-Wootton Rivers) and maybe some other lock-free sections. Other than that, the lengths which were isolated but navigable in the 1970s and 1980s were generally sections restored in advance of being reconnected. One of the fairly early lock restorations was Wootton Rivers in around 1973, creating a navigable section from Devizes to Crofton Top. The Newbury length was progressively extended, mainly westwards, during the 70s and 80s. Eventually it was linked to Devizes by the restoration of Crofton Locks. I'm less sure of the order of reopening at the west end. it was the extension of navigability from Reading that attracted > the traffic (that from Bath lagged considerably IIRC) and gave the > feeling of progress. I'm not sure you remember correctly. I hired a boat at the west end in the late 1980s when it was navigable from the Avon up to the bottom of Devizes locks, and it seemed to be getting a certain amount of use, without being what you'd call busy. I also cruised the east end from Reading to the limit of navigation several times (Four times, I think, and we got further each time) and again I recall it having some boats but not being terribly busy. I once cruised to Ufton when that was the head > of navigation, to see what the K&A was like. > > By all means start work on some easy bits of the Uttoxeter. But also > start pushing for resolution of the first impediment from Froghall > (and of the tunnel). > I don't feel that the Kennet is really comparable to the Uttoxeter. Extending navigation west from the outskirts of Reading, it was possible to open it a lock at a time (or a lock plus a swingbridge sometimes) and each time to establish significant new lengths of cruising water at affordable sums. (although still more expensive and requiring more planning issues / arguing with BW etc than other parts of the route, hence why Reading-Newbury was one of the later bits to be completed) Extending navigation from Froghall needs several million spending on an A road crossing. That will (once you've also restored 3 locks, built one new one and excavated the infilled bed where a rail siding was laid on it - I daresay we volunteers could achieve that in as little as 6-7 years if we work hard) give you half a mile of canal leading to a length partially obliterated by a railway still in occasional use and planned for reopening as a tourist line. A couple of miles of channel reconstruction (some original bed, some lengths of new channel alongside the railway) including another new lock and a couple of lock restorations brings you to the edge of your first real destination, Oakamoor. I am sure that they will do it eventually, but I think I can see CUCT's view if they feel that reopening a mile of surviving isolated canal and rebuilding two largely still extant locks at Crumpwood as a trip-boat and trailboat length makes sense as an initial project to raise the restoration's profile and make the funding for Froghall-Uttoxeter more likely in the medium term. Martin
