One more tour of the breach, dear friends

In Possible tours of collapsed canal, BBC Stoke & Staffordshire touts the idea of the Leek breach as a tourist destination:

Volunteers at Inland Waterways [sic] said the 15m (50ft) hole in the Caldon Canal could be a good way of showing people how canals were constructed.

The hole opened up when part of the canal's towpath and bank collapsed in Leek last month.  Hundreds of people are reported to have crossed safety barriers of up to 6m (20ft) high to have a look at the collapsed canal.

Inland Waterways said it was now considering the idea of the tours to allow people to see the canal under supervision.

I wrote last month that this was an ideal chance to study the cross section of the canal.  But I was thinking of it as an academic lesson in the history of canals.  You know, like students get interpretive tours of Shakespearean battlefields. 

I never thought of it as a possible guided tour for paying rubberneckers, but wouldn't it be a great opportunity for the Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust (not 'Inland Waterways') to raise funds. 

In fact, canal societies could even stage new breaches specifically as fund-raising exercises.   A bit like the way surgeons sometimes re-break a leg just to re-set it.  Just a thought.

Comments

[PAT THE LAND OWNER]

As the land owners who have since breach endured a constant stream of trespassers cutting fences ,leaving gates open , destroying private property ,along side the normal beer cans used contraceptives and doggy crap bags the very thought of further disruption via "rubberneckers" who appear to belive that they have a devine right to wander at will over private property , insulting and threatening anybody questioning their unauthorised presence fills us with dread. While many canal users pass by enjoy experience and move on there are those who make life next to the canal very trying and expensive.

[Bruce Napier]

Gosh you know what I'm going to say, don't you? Peter and Susan Mason's takeover of Braidbar from the Brycelands has been a copybook of how to do it. They kept all of the long established team of craftsmen, had a two year overlap with Iain and Luisa, kept all the design features but with improving tweaks.

And our first boat was built under the old regime and the new one's being built now, but we ordered it from the new owners, so not what you're asking about.

[Brian]

Maybe it would be more cost effective to never repair the breach and make it into a museum

[Martin Ward]

Andrew - don't even mention things like that!
(BTW your self-referential link has a superfluous trailing .html)