WILTS & BERKS CANAL TRUST

Well what a day! The official opening of double bridge by HRH the Duchess of Cornwall was a spectacular success and we here in West Vale Branch send our congratulations to all the Trust staff and members who made the day such a wonderful event - the untiring efforts of the organizers and the work party concerned must be thoroughly applauded. Yours truly was most honored to be among those introduced to HRH - and to explain to her the work of West Vale Branch, especially the restoration of Steppingstone Bridge.

The day fully underlined the importance of the Canal Partnership and the Trusts place in it. Things are definitely happening - we have at last pushed that ‘open door' fully open! The Duchess was extremely interested, perhaps we can persuade her to open our bridge when it's finished - and that won't be too long now! But before I give you the bridge update other news --

Well it has finally happened, after many years of negotiations West Vale have at last managed to secure a lease for a part of the canal next to our Canalside Park. West Vale had their special day as well when the Trusts CEO and I visited the landowners and the documents were duly signed. It, of course, means much more work for the Branch - eventually we hope to fully restore the canal here but in the short term, to comply with lease conditions, it means that we have to install lots of fencing - one stretch of 400 metres straight away - the branch lads and lassies are on to it already! We have named this length of canal, for convenience sake, the Savernake Section and it is about 1K in length. The full restoration also requires the building of a large culvert so I will be reporting much about this length in future issues.

Other lease negotiations here are progressing as well and the towpaths still need constant maintenance. Will we manage it all? Of course, with all the extra volunteers now screaming to come aboard, we can't fail!

Now back to Steppingstone Bridge - the brickwork is finished! Yes the last brick on the bridge itself has been laid. The two week long WRG Easter camp, (just where would we be without WRGs help), ably led by our bridge WPO Martin Thompson achieved much and several more weekends saw the job done. We still have to source coping stones for the parapet walls and to lay them, but it's done! Then the final push is to lay the surface across the top. As I reported before, to comply with the latest ‘disabled access regulations' the gradients must be shallower than 1 in 12. This means taking the approaches back further than originally. The approaches also need to be supported from the sides so huge gabions have been laid at the four corners of the bridge to retain them. Gabion? - A cubic metre wire box filled with large stones. Stones? Forty Tonnes donated by a not so local company- they took some shifting! Finally PFA - (pulverized fuel ash) will be used to surface the bridleway.

A special licence (at some expense and trouble) has had to be obtained from the Environment Agency to use PFA but it will be supplied free by a local power company! When will this be done? Well I have just booked accommodation for another WRG weekend camp in a few days time and other weekends are planned very soon so before you read this much will already be done. As soon as the bridge is usable again it will be opened to the public. The diversion route dam will then be removed and the trapped water will run away. Then it's down to water level to sort out the towpath, the wing walls and the cut itself.

The end is nigh, it's not all digging in the mud! Well some of it is!