ENGINEERS are confident they will end up in deep water by the end of the month and successfully complete the £2.5m restoration of Llangattock Canal.
Contractors have been going full steam ahead for five months to make sure that the section of the 200-year-old Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal is open for the Spring.
Kevin Phillips, Customer Operations Supervisor for the Canal & River Trust, said: "We are very confident that the works in the channel will be completed by March 29, giving us two days to refill the canal. The towpath will remain closed for a short period of time to enable our contractors to finish the ground works."
It hasn’t been all plain sailing for Glandwr Cymru – the Canal & River Trust in Wales, and engineers Kier. Plans had to take a different route when the Trust changed course to save 40 trees along the towpath which were home to nesting bats.
While the canal sat empty of water, visitors were given the unique opportunity to walk along the canal bed. The charity’s team of experts were on hand to explain how specialist skills and heritage techniques are used at the tourist attraction. Arts Alive Wales, a local arts charity which uses arts to enhance the quality of lives in local rural communities, visited with their mobile art studio in a horse box.
Nick Lewis, project manager for the Canal & River Trust, says: “The Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal is one of the real gems of our canal system. I really want to encourage people to come along and learn about the important work we do as a charity and see up close the team’s five months of hard work which we’ve worked continuously on throughout the bitter winter months to complete.”
For more information visit www.canalrivertrust.org.uk/open-days.