£2.7m Lottery win for canals
A lock restoration, rejuvenation of a historic wharf, and a revamp of a canal centre are to be funded by Heritage Lottery Fund grants totalling not far short of £3 million.
Carpenter’s Road Lock (pictured), situated in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London, is the final unnavigable link in the network of local waterways known as the Bow Back Rivers. Thanks to the provisional approval of a £600,000 grant, the restoration of this 1930s structure (complete with unusual radial guillotine gates) will reinstate a second link between the Waterworks River and the City Mill River and open up another ring.
Meanwhile, on the Leeds & Liverpool, initial approval of a £2m grant paves the way for restoration of Finsley Gate Wharf, part of the Weavers’ Triangle heritage conservation area in Burnley, including conversion of three empty listed warehouses, a canal cottage, a former blacksmith’s forge and a slipway into a boat repair yard, restaurant and rental cottage.
Lastly, the Monmouthshire Brecon& Abergavenny Canal Trust’s Visitor Centre at Fourteen Locks near Newport will benefit from £83,900 for training volunteers and developing the centre as a heritage and education resource.
And, as we went to press, the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust’s project to restore a kilometre of canal bank as a towpath wildlife trail was in with a chance of £50,000 in the Big Lottery Fund’s People’s Millions TV vote on 26 November.
