Decision for Wey & Arun connection to the national system
THE Wey & Arun Canal Trust is awaiting the decision to connect its waterway to the national system.
This comes after many years of hard, and often difficult work, but now there is the possibility of the connection of the northern section of the Wey & Arun Canal to the national waterway system re-creating at last the waterway from the Thames to the sea.
The application is for a connection to the Wey Navigation by the A281 bridge to a point adjacent to the historic aqueduct on Gosden Meadow in Godalming, that would be the result of 1k of waterway with a new lock and bridges.
New canalside walk open
The Wey & Arun Trust volunteers have created a picturesque 1km canalside walk at Birtley, near Bramley, that is now open to the public.
The stretch of abandoned Wey & Arun Canal was purchased thanks to the generosity of an overseas member and restoration work began back in 2019, removing a causeway, fencing off the adjacent farmland and creating an access track, along with tackling fallen trees and overgrown vegetation.
Regular volunteers and visiting working parties joined forces to construct the first of two lift bridges planned for the area and put in what must have been a phenomenal effort to complete the bridge abutments in just 12 months.
Allow access
Volunteers have now constructed a temporary deck for the bridge to allow access to the walk, which is flanked by the Downs Link path above and Cranleigh Waters in the valley below.
The temporary deck will be replaced in due course; the trust is working with the council to get a design approved in principle for lifting bridges, which will be used for the existing bridge and a second Birtley bridge for which planning permission has been granted.
An application has also been submitted to develop the canal south of the new bridge. Some 450m of new canal channel will be created here, along with reinstatement of 530m of existing canal channel. The project includes construction of a brick-faced bridleway overbridge and lock.