Moving On..

After all the excitement of the visit by our Patron to inaugurate the landing stage, life is coming back to normal.  Just a final word on it  First of all, thanks to the many people who helped to make it such a success, including of course the boat team, and Juanita Poulton for working so hard on the invitations.  The overall reaction has been very positive, we had good media coverage, and many of our guests have commented on how much they enjoyed it.  We are trying to work out ways in which we can capitalise with some of them on the goodwill generated.

One of the things that we are keen to move forward on as quickly as possible is Swindon Borough Council and their joint venture partner’s plans for the next phase of development at Wichelstowe. Incorporating our canal scheme for the Wichelstowe Link into these plans is now crucial to join the existing sections at Kingshill and East Wichel.

Talking of the boat team, they are working out the detail of operating Dragonfly now that we will be starting the public trips from the new landing stage. Details from http://www.wbct.org.uk/boat-trips/schedule

As Ken suggested might be the case in last week’s blog, our contractors Land and Water are mobilising this week at Studley Grange.  Due to circumstances completely outside our control, we have been delayed by a few weeks, and that puts a little more pressure on getting the work completed before the bad weather comes in,  We are hoping that they will be able to make up a little of the time lost.

The holiday season is on us course – many schools broke up at the end of last week – so that will have some impact on the pace of things, as it becomes less easy to get together for meetings, or contact people.  But it is a chance to restore batteries, and perhaps reflect on what we have achieved, and what comes next.

Chris Coyle