Andrew oversees essential maintenance and repair projects throughout the Midlands to help ensure our 200-year-old network remains open, safe and accessible. “We get five months to deliver our raft of works,” says Andrew, “starting on 3 November and running through to the middle of March. Typically, each job takes around six weeks.”
In early November, work began at Dratley’s Bridge on the Ashby Canal in Warwickshire – one of the many projects Andrew and the team will be tackling this winter. “It’s a big challenge,” says Andrew. “The bridge has shifted slightly, there are cracks in the brickwork and stonework, some of the blockwork is missing, and a keystone on the eastern side has been severely damaged.”
Like a lot of our structures, Dratley’s Bridge is fairly remote, which posed a number of logistical challenges for Andrew and the team. “It’s situated in a rural area, on private farmland,” he says, “so all the materials – the bricks, cement, even the fuel for the pumps – have to be shipped in by boat.”
As much of the damage was below the water, before work could begin in earnest, the team had to drain a small section of the canal and rig an elaborate water chute to minimise disruption during the six-week repair works.
“We put in two temporary fabric dams,” says Andrew, “one on either side of the canal, then pumped the water out. To keep the canal flowing, we installed a large tube, about 400 millimetres wide, which carries the water right through the works.”
The work at Dratley’s Bridge is just one of approximately 40 projects Andrew will oversee in the Midlands alone this winter, with dozens more being carried out across the country. And of course, it’s not just the repairs itself, centuries-old infrastructure brings its own particular logistical and technical challenges.
“A lot of my team have been with us for 25 or 30 years and are very experienced,” says Andrew, “trying to pass on those skills and knowledge to our apprentices and bring new people into the charity is challenging. They’re all very traditional skills, like lock gate repair or lime mortar curing and need to be learnt on the job rather than in college.”
On Andrew’s patch, as across all of our network, the work also relies heavily on the experience, dedication, and boundless energy of our volunteers.
“They’re integral to everything we do,” says Andrew, “supporting us with day-to-day tasks like mixing cement and laying bricks, engaging with customers on the canalside, helping us move materials, setting up site, clearing vegetation, and putting up fences. We really couldn’t operate without them.”
In all, our programme of winter works will span 45 canals and rivers, with 137 separate projects at more than 100 locks, 14 bridges, two tunnels, and a host of embankments, sluices, culverts, and canal walls. Sadly, with government funding cuts on the horizon and a changing climate, it’s getting tougher every year to keep our ageing canals and rivers flowing.
