Volunteers Resurface Towpath

Audlem Canal & River Trust Towpath Taskforce event took place this week on Tuesday 7th and Wednesday 8th of June.

A huge turnout of Network Rail, Siemens Transportation, CRT Staff and regular volunteers over the glorious two days saw us achieve and complete a mammoth amount of work and no less than 6 projects.

The main focus being improving visitor and boater experience to the canal and Audlem.

The towpath, from the Mill to Bridge 78 was completely resurfaced and dressed. For those who are regular visitors to this section of canal in the non-summer months would be familiar with the large pools of water and mud on this section giving a poor experience of the towpath.

Regular boaters mooring up have been complaining heavily and it was noted that it was also affecting trade in Audlem, with visitor(s) saying they would not moor up in the village section or visit (noted on Facebook/Social Media in October 2015).

Making best use of good weather, no less than 205m of towpath was resurfaced and 4 Locks on the Audlem flight painted.

The work completed:

• Refresh of the paint work on Lock 11 balance beams.
• Refresh of the paint work on Lock 10 balance beams.
• Refresh of the paint work on Lock 9 balance beams.
• Refresh of the paint work on Lock 8 balance beams.
• Resurfaced the towpath between the Mill and Bridge 78, 150m of towpath.
• Resurfaced/redressed 55m of the towpath between locks 13 and 14.
• Filled in two deep pot holes on the access road.
• Cleared two surface drains and built new retainer for the path surface adjacent to the drain.
• Cleared mud and dirt from the mooring rings in the village pound.

As the weather was glorious we enjoyed a barbeque lunch on the Wednesday, with the CRT staff from Norbury providing home reared pork, sausages and burgers along with home-made sauces of exceptional taste. Home-made ginger snap cookies and lemon vanilla shortbread were enjoyed too.

A real big thank you to all who supported the event, which would not have been the success it had been without the determination and pride of the CRT Norbury staff and regular Audlem Volunteers.

Dek Owen – Volunteer (Task Leader)
Canal & River Trust 07771 831340

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