News

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Towpath improvement

10 March 2012

The Bollington area Towpath Improvement project has been very slow to make visible progress - until early 2012! Two lengths have been re-surfaced with small stone and much improved. To the north of br.29, Clarke Lane, more than 100m has been treated. This has been a very wet area due to water draining out of the cutting side. Permanent drainage has been installed which should ensure that this water does not again accumulate on the towpath.

On the north side of br.27, Hurst Lane, the holes have been filled and stone laid along about 60+m. No drainage has been installed so we hope that water doesn't loiter in the bottom of the new stone and lead to early wear.

See more about this project below.

Breach Dinner

1 March 2012

47 Bollingtonians remembered the 'Bollington Burst' on the 100th anniversary on 29th February 2012 by sitting down to an excellent fish, chips and mushy peas dinner at The Plaice fish & chip restaurant in Bollington. Tim Boddington (the webmaster) thanked the Mayor of Bollington, Cllr Graham Hibbert for coming up with the idea and organising the event. Tim said that "Bollington never fails to come up with a reason to hold an enjoyable event, be it dinner, music, dancing or even a festival, no matter how obscure the reason! If those 100 men, 100 years ago, who slaved day and night for three weeks to fill the hole and get the canal back in water could be told why we were together for this dinner they would rightly think we were completely crackers! But that's Bollington!"

Fiona Bruce MP is IWA Parliamentarian of the Year

29 February 2012

MP for Congleton, Fiona Bruce is the IWA's choice for Parliamentarian of the Year 2012. She won this annual award for her vigorous support of the waterways as treasurer of the All Party Parliamentary Waterways Group. See the full story.

David Rutley, MP for adjacent Macclesfield is also a member of the Waterways Group.

'Bollington Burst' remembered at Discovery Centre

29 February 2012

The 100th anniversary of the disastrous breach at Kerridge on Leap Day, 29th February 1912, was remembered by a gathering of a dozen or so enthusiasts meeting at the Discovery Centre at Clarence mill on the canal side in Bollington. The Discovery Centre has an exhibition of excellent photographs taken of the incident and it's aftermath. See history page on the breach.

New deck on bridge 49

25 January 2012

BW have repaired bridge 49, Fools Nook, by fitting it with a new deck - new timbers with a hard wearing road surface on top. See pic by Brian McGuigan.

Bollington man to chair local CART partnership

10 January 2012

Professor Walter Menzies has been appointed to chair the Manchester & Pennine area partnership of waterways once the new charity, Canal & River Trust (CART), comes into being in April 2012 to replace British Waterways. Walter is well known to us as the director of the recently completed Mersey Basin Campaign. He has lived for many years in Bollington close to the Macclesfield Canal.

Stoppage at Bosley

10 January 2012

Bosley flight has the gates locked at the top lock and at Lock 11, and it was planned to be closed for the stoppage from last Friday (06/01/2012), although I hear a few boats have passed through but been escorted. At Lock 6 (for which the scheduled stoppage until Mar 9 is for) there is safety tape (with words of warning in English & Welsh!) across the bridge at the tail, because there is a small earth collapse under the offside lock beam and down to join up with the earlier collapse near the landing platform. Some of the new quadrant has fallen in! There was no work underway mid-afternoon.

I think there is also a small collapse of earth by the offside hedge (there is pink sheeting already in place) leading down from the offside lower gate at Lock 4 to the landing platform. There has been a similar leak here over the past 2 years, but BW said they had plugged it. Malcolm Bower, Secretary MCS.

Blockage at Gurnett - cleared

10 January 2012

The tree down at Gurnett was on the offside between Turnover Bridge 43 at Gurnett and Laburnum Road towards Br 41. It was mostly sawn up by late morning (today 10/01/2012) and I was told it was removed by early afternoon. The contractor's van was parked opposite The Elms in Byrons Lane and they had crossed the field to the canal. Malcolm Bower, Secretary MCS.

Bollington area towpath project

23 February 2011 updated 10 January 2012

While some improvements have been made to the canal towpath through Bollington, there remain significant lengths in the Bollington area, and as far south as Macclesfield, that are extremely wet and muddy in all but the driest weather. The problem has even featured on the front page of the Macclesfield Express, 23/02/2011.

On Monday 28 February 2011 there was a meeting between Cheshire East Council, British Waterways, Bollington Town Council (Destination Bollington tourism group) and Macclesfield Canal Society to explore the possibility of applying for a grant to improve a long length of the towpath north of Macclesfield up to Whiteley Green or beyond.

After months of to'ing and fro'ing a project was finally established in November 2011 and stone was delivered from BW's Macclesfield wharf to a site just north of bridge 29 where it was laid by a Community Services group. Before laying the stone they also installed a number of drainage pipes to discharge spring and field drainage water into the canal rather than allow it to settle on the towpath.