West Vale Reports
| Shrivenham, Watchfield, and Bourton Parish News. December 2011 |
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Well things really have been moving on since last month - we have had lots of volunteers from Swindon companies, groups of between 8 and 30 have been turning up on various days of the week to help us out and haven't they been busy, the ditches and the canal at the Park site have been completely cleared of undergrowth, this will allow us access with our digger to clear out the ditch and whilst this is done to level the adjacent land to form a footway all around the eastern end of the Park site - this will more than double the length of accessible paths on the park. Two more visits due this year and hopefully many more early next year! Further work planned includes towpath recovery, gates and fencing installations and tree planting as well as more scrub clearance. Some of this tree planting is to be done by the ‘Forest School' - (young children who meet in the Canalside Park to learn about nature) - as part of the Queens Jubilee Project organized by the Woodland Trust. Thanks go to all of you who have provided hardcore for us to use at Steppingstone Bridge - over 3 tonnes donated already, and more trickling in - but we still require even more, so if you have any old bricks or concrete messing up your gardens which could be bagged up so that we can collect and transport it to site would be much appreciated, please give me a call if you can help. The Trust AGM took place in October at which very ambitious plans were revealed to establish a footpath along the entire original canal towpath where it is possible, with detours where required, (long lengths have been lost/built over in Swindon centre for example), from Abingdon in the east to Semington in the west, within 5 years!. This initiative is being led By the W&B Canal Partnership www.wiltsandberkscanal.org.uk (Includes all the County and Town Councils along the canal line, Companies, Environment Agency, Sustrans and many other organizations). BIG plans indeed! This will affect us greatly here in the Vale as most of the canal line is still intact, but lots of it belongs to private landowners. Just how will it all pan out? Who knows, but like to know more then come along to our branch meetings. Talking of land ownership - perhaps I should briefly explain "who owns the canal?" Originally the W&B Canal Company purchased the land with authority given them by an Act of Parliament in 1795. After a hundred years or so the company was defunct, put out of business by the coming of the Great Western Railway, and the canal fell into disuse and disrepair! Now at that time, thanks to the GWR, Swindon was a very ‘up and coming' modern new town (and still is) but with a smelly, revolting, fly-ridden old disused canal right through the middle of the town centre. Something had to be done! So the Borough Council petitioned parliament and the canal was officially closed by the ‘1914 Act of Abandonment'. The Act basically vested the ownership of the canal land back to the landowners on either side of the canal but with certain numerous provisos. Thus Swindon quickly filled in the nasty bits in the town! (Ironic that they are now very keen on the canal returning into the town centre!). One proviso protected ‘public rights of way' crossing the canal so that bridges and a certain amount of land surrounding them were vested in the local authority. It's this condition that has allowed us to rebuild Steppingstone Bridge as it ‘belongs' to the council although the canal land either side is in ‘private ownership'. The Trust owns the Canalside Park but much of the canal hereabouts is privately owned. Some landowners have given us permission to work with rights of public access and some have kindly allowed us a lease but others are not quite so forthcoming! The Trust is a registered Charity and as such is restricted in how we use Trust funds; we can only spend substantial amounts where we have ‘full and long lasting control of the canal land for the public benefit'. So that's why some of what we do seems a bit piecemeal. We are endeavoring to get permissions on many more sections all the time. Complicated aint it! - that's why our volunteers don't spend all their time digging in the mud. Like to learn more and perhaps help out in some way? - Then come along to our meetings or chat to one of us down at a canal workparty. Also much more history on the Trust website! We are always short of funds as well as volunteers so please give us your support by coming along to our now famous Annual Quiz - guaranteed to be entertaining and challenging. More details elsewhere in this magazine! Alan Norris PS: After many years of holding our mutually beneficial monthly meetings at the Bowls Club we have decided to move to a new venue. So from 14th December our Branch Meetings will be held in the Prince of Wales at 8pm on the second Wednesday of each month.
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