Ivy House Embankment, Caldon Canal, Hanley, Stoke on Trent

The expected canal reopening date of 23rd June has been accelerated by weekend working, good weather, additional staff numbers on site, better than expected progress of the canal bed lining system and the plan to complete some works after the reopening of the canal.

As such, we will now be able to reopen navigation by 5pm on the 27th May 2022. From this date, navigation will be possible, but a restriction will be in place where the Trust’s contractor will still be working in the canal between Ivy House Lift Bridge (Bridge 11) and Bucknall Road Bridge (Bridge 12), so boat traffic will need to carefully pass the working boats. This navigation restriction will remain in place until 17th June 2022. The towpath will remain closed until 5pm Monday 6th June.

Since November 2021, the Trust’s contractors have been working between Ivy House Lift Bridge and Bucknall Road Bridge on the Caldon Canal to stop leakage from the canal through the embankment. 

As the project has progressed we encountered problems that were not expected and as a consequence were unable to plan for. We are investigating how these could have been better predicted. As a result the works have unfortunately run significantly behind schedule. Regrettably it is now expected that the work will continue until the summer, with the canal unable to reopen until 23 June 2022.

We are sorry about this late announcement and are very aware that this will impact on many boaters planned boat movements for this spring and early summer. We recognise it would have been helpful to let some people planning their boating know earlier, however we wanted to establish all the facts to get clarity on the length of the extension before making an announcement. We are working with our Navigation Advisory group to look at further improvements to communicate with boaters when work’s don’t go as planned. We are making every effort to reopen the canal as quickly as possible and will look for any opportunity to bring the completion forward. We have already implemented weekend working,. 

We are exploring whether it is possible to crane out stranded craft from the closed section of the Caldon Canal and move them past the restriction, the Trust will look to facilitate this if it is possible. If your boat is stranded by this extended stoppage please contact [email protected] with reference to the Caldon Canal works at Ivy House Embankment.

The works have overrun because, despite surveys being completed before the works started, by a contractor that we work with successfully on a regular basis, on this occasion the depth of silt we needed to remove to a suitably hard bed has been deeper than predicted. As a consequence, double the expected amount of silt has had to be removed from the canal bed before relining works could commence.  We are reviewing what can be done to help plan other future works with similar challenges more accurately. We have faced further challenges as a result of the level of contamination of the additional material removed which has required required specialist disposal. This has made the canal bed and offside repairs more difficult and taken much longer than we’d hoped.

We thank you for the patience you’ve shown to date and we commit to providing regular updates on progress and use what we have learned from the issues encountered in these works to improve delivery of future works of a similar nature

A stoppage is required due to a full canal bed replacement over Ivy House Embankment to cure leakage.