Our wide-ranging annual programme of major maintenance and preservation projects helps keep the nation’s historic canal network navigable and safe.
This annual multi-million pound, comprehensive scheme of works, undertaken by the our skilled experts, is essential to ensure the upkeep of the 250-year-old man-made canal network. The work takes place between November and March when there is less boating traffic.
Although the works have included repairs to ageing assets such as bridges, tunnels, embankments, sluices, culverts and canal walls, the bulk of the works have been replacing lock gates which have reached the end of their 25-year lives. Removing and replacing more than 100 lock gates is a major feat of engineering. Each lock gate is individually designed and hand-built at one of the charity’s two specialist workshops, at Stanley Ferry in Yorkshire and Bradley in the Midlands. No two locks are the same width or depth, and the team of skilled technicians and craftspeople employ traditional techniques to make each individual lock gate, some of which weigh the equivalent of an adult Asian elephant!
Some of these projects undertaken across the Trust’s canal and river navigations include:
- lock gate replacement at Sykehouse Lock, used primarily by freight on the New Junction Canal, part of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigations;
- replacing lock gates on the Rochdale Canal in central Manchester, one of six lock gate replacement projects made possible thanks to funds raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery;
- replacing lock gates on the Stoke Bruerne Lock Flight on the Grand Union Canal in the East Midlands;
- replacing lock gates at Hamstead Lock on the Kennet and Avon Canal near Newbury in Berkshire.
Facing severe weather challenges
Our teams have faced several weather-related challenges because of storms, flooding and one of the wettest winters in recent times. The lock gate replacement at Bank Dole Lock on the Aire & Calder Navigation in Yorkshire was interrupted by severe flooding when Storm Claudia battered the country before Christmas. Yet thanks to the tireless effort of the team, the flooding set the works back only a matter of weeks. And on the Leicester Line of the Grand Union Canal in the East Midlands, two lock replacement projects were affected due to flooding, the canal freezing over, and high winds and rain.
Malcolm Horne, our chief infrastructure and programmes officer, said: “Winter is the time of year when the focus for our skilled specialists, including our in-house construction team, turns to delivering the larger maintenance and engineering projects that are essential to keeping our 250-year-old canal network open and alive.
“Canals are centuries-old working heritage and, with rising costs, climate pressures and more extreme weather events, the challenge of keeping them in good condition for navigation has never been greater.
“While millions of people use and visit the canals every week, perhaps they don’t stop to think about what it takes to look after them – or what we would lose if they were gone. Our canals cannot take care of themselves - keeping the nation’s canals open and safe requires millions of pounds. And the reality is, we cannot keep them alive without the support of boaters, our volunteers, supporters, and the wider public.”
Interesting lock gate facts
When 14 of the lock gates manufactured at Stanley Ferry were collected heading for construction sites, their total weight equalled three London buses; side by side they would have measured nearly the length of an Olympic swimming pool and if stacked on top of each other would have been the height of Wakefield Cathedral.
The lock gates made for Bank Dole Lock on the Aire & Calder Navigation in Yorkshire weigh 4,300kg – equivalent to an adult Asian elephant.
