OVER the past few months there have been many news items of stoppages, mostly lasting at least a day or two, but it seems that as far as stoppages are concerned the Shropshire Union Canal is different.
For when the bottom gate liners of Lock 3 of the Adderley Flight failed, Canal & River Trust where there at 6.30pm and worked through the night for around 12 hours completing the repairs by 6am in the morning!
Minimise disruption
This it tells us was an effort to minimise disruption to boaters during the peak summer boating season, Trust staff carried out overnight repairs to replace damaged bottom gate liners, as the lock is an important part of the North-South canal network on the popular Shropshire Union Canal between Audlem and Market Drayton.
Seemingly totally different to other stoppages, Mike Shore, an engineer with the Trust, explained:
"Hundreds of boaters use this stretch of canal each week during the summer season so we were determined to keep disruption to a minimum. We needed to make the repairs to keep the lock gates operational—the work wouldn't wait until the usual winter programme so we decided the best option was an overnight emergency repair.
"I am delighted to say the gates are now good as new again and boaters hardly noticed the disruption to navigation."
All very strange indeed. Can we hope it is the new policy to undertake all repairs throughout the night to 'avoid disruption'?