Shropshire Union Canal breach will not ruin Chris’s section
Canals around the region will be thriving in the coming weeks as the sun has finally reared its head.
But one section of the Shropshire Union Canal that will be cut off this summer is between Stanthorne Lock and Wardle Lock in Middlewich.
The 70 metre section of the 200 year old waterway was swept away in a breach in March, and it is going to take several months to repair the work at a cost of between £2 million and £3 million.
However, despite the disruption, lock keeper and chair of Whitchurch Waterways Trust Chris Chambers is hoping the breach could spell some positives for the area.
He helps manages locks at Lower Frankton and Grindley Brook, and the latter saw the number of boats going through increase on days over Easter from between 20 to 40.
The breach is forcing boaters to re-think their plans and use different routes and Mr Chambers is hoping that will bring benefits to areas along the canal.
He said: "Already we have seen a significant increase in traffic through Grindley Brook and I expect this trend to continue until the breach is repaired.
"Those boaters caught to the east of the breach are similarly having to re-plan their holidays. Whereas they may have been planning to come across to the Shropshire canals they are now visiting the Caldon and Macclesfield waters and beyond.
"There is clearly a trade off, we will lose all the traffic that would have come from the east down the Middlewich branch, but are now picking up the greater volume from the boaters that were planning to go around the Cheshire ring or up onto the more northerly canal system."
