Amid all the worry about our waterways, here is a piece of cheer. Fund Britain’s Waterways shared it with a simple “good news for a change” — and they were right.
Five locks on the Grand Union Canal are to be completely replaced, thanks to funding raised through the Postcode Lottery and delivered by the Canal & River Trust. The new gates will be installed this winter at Stoke Hammond near Milton Keynes and at Winkwell, near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, with three more at Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire, where Locks 17, 19 and 20 will be renovated.
Lock gates normally last around 25 years and are hand-built in specialist workshops, combining traditional techniques with modern engineering so each gate is tailored to its own lock. As the Trust’s chief executive Campbell Robb put it, lock gates are at the very heart of canal operations, and keeping them sound is essential to a resilient network.
It’s a welcome reminder that steady investment keeps our canals navigable and alive for boaters, walkers and wildlife alike — exactly what the funding campaign is all about.
Spotted via Fund Britain’s Waterways on Bluesky: read their post here.
