Mission Impassable: The Highways Agency A46 threat that could ruin the Grantham Canal restoration

I've just spent a couple of hours on the Grantham Canal at Mann's Bridge, near Cotgrave.  I was in the company of John Brydon, Chairman of the Grantham Canal Society and Peter Stone of the Grantham Canal Partnership. (The Partnership is the collection of official bodies involved in the restoration, including British Waterways, English Nature and several interested councils.)  

And I heard and saw first-hand the extraordinary story that could ruin the canal's restoration as a boating route.

The Grantham Canal has been under slow-but-steady recovery for two decades.  With its line preserved, full restoration of the 33 mile route as a cruising waterway at last looks achievable, and I live in hope of Granny Buttons reaching Grantham.

But a dark cloud looms over the Vale of Belvoir.

[Update 15th Dec: East Midlands Today is covering this story on Thursday's edition, 6:30-7pm.
Update 17th Dec: Nope apparently it was just videoed today, might go out anything in the next week as a sort of 'And finally...' piece]

Last year Earlier this year, as emergency spending to combat the recession, the Highways Agency suddenly got £350million to 'dual' 16 miles of the A46 between Newark and Widmerpool, north of Leicester. 

The A46 crosses the Grantham Canal near Cropwell Bishop, and fortunately the planners have made provision for the new road to fly over the Grantham Canal at a reasonable height to allow boats to navigate.

This whole project has been kicked forward so fast that at times it seems the designers are only weeks ahead of the earthmovers.  For example, the plans for the new canal underbridge are still not completed, even though the earth's been moved!

The cloud is this:  It turns out that an important feeder road (Stragglethorpe Lane) will itself cross almost flat across the canal bed at 'Joshua Mann's Bridge', Bridge No.16, only half a mile away from the new canal underbridge.

Google Maps link here, closer map of the feeder road pictured below.  The point at which it crosses the canal is just where the red line comes off the roundabout.

All that's needed to protect the canal restoration is that the road be ramped about 5 feet higher over the point where it crosses the canal, providing a simple concrete bridge for boats to pass under.

John Brydon of the Grantham Canal Society says that the roadbuilders don't need to do much to save the canal:

We've already amended our restoration plans to lower the canal at this point, to make the roadbuilders' job easier.   All we are asking is that they ramp the road up 1.7 metres to give the canal clearance to get underneath. 

The Highways Agency claims its current plans will not impede future restoration.  The new Mann's Bridge, they say, could always be added later.

But here's the rub:  Raising the road and installing the new bridge now -when the building starts in the new year - will only cost perhaps an additional £300k (maybe £500k at the very outside) and will not delay the main A46 dualling programme. Furthermore, a new bridge would include a towpath/footpath under the road, removing the need for an £80,000 toucan crossing.

However, adding the bridge later - closing the recently laid road and digging it up all over again just to add the bridge - not to mention the extra disruption and compensation to local residents and businesses - would costs millions, argues John Brydon.  Even at current values, an extra cost of £10 million is not unrealistic:

"Come on - you know that's never going happen.  If this bridge doesn't get put in early next year, it will kill the complete restoration.  Boats will never reach Grantham from the Trent. 

That £10 million would be better spent on a whole canal restoration rather than the just putting right one small bureaucratic oversight."

This is a surreal, bizarre situation, because the government is already helping the canal restoration in one way, by providing the very expensive main underbridge half a mile away.

Here is the Highways Agency page on the 'A46 Newark to Widmerpool Improvement'.   You can subscribe to email alerts on the progress of this project.

The local MP for the area is erstwhile Chancellor Kenneth Clarke MP.  He's a birdwatcher, apparently, so hopefully he'll be on the side of the canal, as a haven of wildlife.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: To write to the Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis, as well as his Under-Secretary, Chris Mole MP.  And to Ken Clarke, if you live locally. You can do it with the links I've given you here on their names, courtesy of the good offices of They Work For You.

Read  the letter by John Brydon on the Grantham Canal website for the story from his own mouth.

But hurry.  You don't have much time. Road-digging begins early in the new year, and it seems that only an order from Adonis himself can get contractors Balfour Beatty piling the earth high at this spot and not selling the canal cheap.

The Google Maps satellite view (picture below) shows the exact location of the canal crossing.  In this case, X really DOES mark the spot.

Comments

[Max Sinclair Life President Canals Trust.]

It has cost millions to open up the A449 at Hawford for the Droitwich Barge Canal to be restored when the bridge should have been built at the time of widening.Many of these closures were pure spite by the Highways lobby as mimimal cost was involved.

[Andrew Denny]

Thanks, Mick!

Believe it or not, I'd never heard of LAFs before!

 

[Mick Brash.]

Can I suggest that people write to the Leicestershire Local Access Forum to flag up this issue. Even perhaps someone from the Grantham Canal Restoration Society offering to make a presentation at their next meeting. LAFs have an advisory status, are obliged to be listened to by HA and ministers even, and their remit is recreational access to land, and as towpaths are long distance walks these qualify totally for their consideration. It will also be of interest to the LAFs of adjoining Counties too as the access relates to them also. So a co-ordinated effort directed to them may assist.
LAFs have their own websites, usually as part of county councils websites.
They are formed from volunteers, usually very experienced Right of Way practitioners, and others representing land owners, businesses, etc.
They are empowered under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to advise, and fall under the cloak of Defra and Natural England.

Hope this helps someone locally to motivate more elbow power!.

Cheers. Mick Brash, Chair, Essex LAF.

[Bob Currell]

For those preferring to email, the address for Lord Adonis is
andrew.adonis@dft.gsi.gov.uk

[John Greenwood]

The objectors scheme at Stragglethorpe was unfortunately rejected by the Inquiry inspector ( based partly on misleading statements by the HA). It would have included the Bridge 16 canal bridge (sensibly keeping the A46 at Ground level and taking the Stragglethorpe road over the top). Unfortunately Balfour Beatty and the HA seemed intent on sticking with their overscaled, overpriced scheme with extensive unnecessary cutting at Saxondale and a huge environmentally intrusive embankment at Stragglethorpe. Cropwell Bishop Parish Council continues to push for rewatering of this canal section and construction of bridge 16 as partial compensation for the 'Environmental debt' that Balfour Beatty now owe to our community for spoiling our landscape and environment.

[Owen]

I've written to the Minister of Transport and received a reply back from the Highways Agency. Boils down to the bridge location being outside the "scheme boundary" so its not covered by the protection legislation and not a justifiable expense.

Typical tunnel vision attitude, will cost a lot more to rectify later!!

[Kevin]

I'm not an expert on these things but I thought that canal restoration routes were supposed to be protected during road planning and building. (e.g. the Lichfield and Hatherton aqueduct bridge over the M6 toll road. This seems a somewhat dodgy way of the Highways Agency circumventing this rule.