WILTS & BERKS CANAL TRUST

Small groups of volunteers have been turning up all through the winter months to support the continuing restoration of Steppingstone Lane Bridge - doing mostly odd jobs as brickwork is difficult in bad weather. Talking about bad weather that snow meant we had to cancel the first major weekend visit of the year by restoration volunteers, they were coming from Kent and East Sussex! Martin Thompson our bridge WPO was most disappointed, but you can't do groundwork below a foot of snow - and then there is the health and safety issue! Never mind we have several more minor and major visits in our diary.

Firstly, there are two week long Waterway Recovery Group visits booked on the bridge, the first is for the two weeks either side of Easter; they are to concentrate on finishing the parapet walls, the west side has just one course to go, the scaffolding will then be transferred to the east side to build that wall. All of the materials are to hand and funds are still trickling in from local charities so here we go - the last big push! Secondly, smaller fortnightly weekend visits are also booked with WRG and local volunteers to do preparatory work. One job is to improve the vehicle access route to the site, we need to get large quantities of aggregates, donated by a well known local power company, to site to surface the road over the bridge but the lane is rutted and difficult for even small lorries so we have teams arriving to lay some crushed concrete, donated by another well known very local company,

To comply with disabled access regulations we have to make the route over the bridge accessible to wheelchair users, this is where all the aggregates come in. We also hope, in time, to make the bridge accessible from the towpath and the towpath accessible from the road, a big project in its own right and well worth it, but let's get the bridge finished first!Talking about access, the footpath route to the bridge from Station Road has been cleared, so the original Shrivenham circular path here is open again - but beware - it is very wet at the moment, not surprising, so wear your wellies!

More good news - we have just heard that Shrivenham Parish Council has agreed to fund their contractor to mow the grass at the Canalside Park on a regular basis. The contractor maintains areas all around the village, especially the recreation ground, and mows Copidthorne Meadow, a community relaxation area adjacent to our park, so they will do our park at the same time. This will relieve us from the chore of grass cutting and allow us a lot more time to concentrate on the towpaths. We might even get round to clearing some more of the original towpath between Steppingstone and Station Road Bridges - however the negotiations for the two canal leases on our patch are again progressing well, and if either is completed soon we may not get around to it, as both require a large amount of volunteer input at their outset! We wait with bated breath!