Last week was a relatively quiet week – a time to catch up
with a few emails and reflect a little. When
looking for grants recently I have been asked several times how many years has
the restoration been going and how much canal has been restored. Officially
running since 1988, an answer of 10-20% doesn’t seem a lot for 27 years. I can
understand how that would sound to someone who doesn’t know the project. The
last few years we have concentrated on getting various planning consents and
doing a lot of preparation for projects. Not a lot of extra metres in water added
to the total. So what can we do?
This year we hope to restore the length at Studley Grange –
that will be a high profile project that will add about 1250 metres. Next year
we hope – start of the Melksham Link – that will be even higher profile,
largely because of the unusual way we intend to fund it through enabling
development. Jock MacKenzie will then move his attention to Master planning
other sections. The problem is that we are all so impatient to reach the next
stage but as Jock would say, step by step we will move forward and the momentum
will increase. With that momentum I hope that our membership will also increase
(as of today standing at 2569). That
would make the project more plausible for funders and for local authorities
too. Keith Price has taken on the job of trying to come up with novel ideas to
attract new faces, I am sure he would welcome your ideas.
The next few weeks promise to be anything but quiet – this
week we have meetings at Studley Grange, Finance and Admin Committee and the
Land Team. We are still awaiting news of
our major bid for Landfill Community grant and today is the deadline for
commenting on the Chippenham Housing allocations plan. Tonight the team is doing a presentation to
Semington Parish Council in order to keep them up to date on plans for the
Melksham Link.
Kath Hatton
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