Easenhall Cutting reopens for boats

After a period of intense rainfall in early February an estimated 4,000 tonnes of the 18m cutting slipped into the canal. Our team worked through difficult conditions, with continued wet weather saturating the site, to find a solution that involved installing a 300m access road across neighbouring fields and digging down the bank to remove the material from the canal.

Re-opening the canal

Thanks to hard work from our teams, navigation resumed in May on weekends, with open ‘windows’ during the week to allow the continuation of clearing material, rebuilding the cutting and reinstating the towpath. The towpath reopened in the summer, when these works were completed.

Working through difficult conditions

Vaughan Felton, our principal engineer, said: "We’re delighted to be reopening the Easenhall Cutting to boats. Our team has worked hard in difficult conditions to get the canal back into a navigable state and it will be great to see boats back using this popular route.

"It’s an illustration of the impact climate change is having on our 250-year-old canal network, both in the damage itself, caused by saturation from extreme winter storms, and in the way the persistent wet weather presented a series of challenges in the repair work. Thank you to boaters for your patience while we continue to work to get this fixed."