Last Updated 6 October 2021
Quiz Night - Friday 22nd October
A great social event. Form a team and see if you can become this years champions. Click on this link MCC Events for full details.
Latest Work Party News (as at 6 Oct 2021) (click on photographs to enlarge)
The highlight of the month was the Melksham Food and River Festival, on the weekend of the 5th and 6th, which the Melksham, Calne and Chippenham (MCC) branch members were heavily involved.
We ran boat trips using two of our boats, Damselfly and The Mary Archard which is designed to allow easy access for wheelchair users and manned our information tent, chatting to many members of the general public about the work we do and our aspirations for the future.
Additionally our very own Bentley the bear visited us on Sunday and was a great hit with the children – and many of the adults. The weather was
dry, warm and sunny which helped make it a very successful event.
At Pewsham our main work has been on removing / reducing the reeds which in places were starting to choke the canal. This is an annual autumn job and despite it being a very, wet, dirty and hard job but the end results are worth the effort.
Work has continued, all be it slowly, on rebuilding the walls of the Dry Dock which sits just behind Bottom Lock. It’s now starting to take shape and is looking more like a Dry Dock!
Further afield to the North of the A4 we have continued our grass cutting and hedge laying and past Pudding Brook we have continued with scrub / undergrowth clearance although this was halted temporarily when we discovered a hornets nest! .
Please note that the section to the north of the A4 (by the Hyundai garage on the A4 going out of Chippenham towards Derry Hill) as far as Pudding Brook is now open to the general Public. This is in its early stages of restoration so at present the towpath is fairly basic being mainly grass with some rutting and steps so is currently not accessible to wheelchair users.
We have also started clearance work on the next section past Pudding Brook. (NB This section is NOT open to the public) This will be a 3 stage restoration project taking into account the ecology and bio-diversity. Initial clearance has been of scrub to actually gain access to the stretch, having checked for any nesting birds before we started, and then clearance of the towpath. We have had help from some corporate team work parties who have spent the day working with us. It’s an exciting new project which will we hope eventually link up with the Chippenham-Calne cycle way.
All this work of course relies on our volunteers but as we look to open up new stretches we really do need to increase our numbers. We carry out work during the week but also at weekends.
If you are interested in what we are doing and / or willing to help out? Contact Dave Maloney (07809 374754 dave.maloney@wbct.org.uk) for further information.