Lapal Looking Up
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Lapal Canal RESTORATION Martin Ludgate catches up with soMe concrete progress on the LapaL canaL LapaL Looking up Look closely at the surroundings of a new supermarket just opened on the edge of Birmingham, and you’ll spot sure signs of a new length of canal being built - and of hope for a tricky restoration scheme... new canal channel taking shape in the ‘undercroft’ under the selly oak supermarket goods delivery yard anal restorers often tend to be challenges. However, when it comes to the an optimistic bunch, and some Lapal Canal, even an optimistic canal would say that’s because they restorer like myself used to regard it as need to be. To look at the something of a long shot. Over two miles Cremains of a long-derelict waterway, of its length consists of Lapal Tunnel, blocked by new roads and factories, with whose collapse in 1917 shut the canal as a demolished bridges, collapsed tunnels and through route, and whose structure is felt missing aqueducts, and then to pronounce to be damaged beyond repair by mining – that there are “no insuperable obstacles to and possibly by the M5 being built across full reopening” takes a bit of a ‘glass half the top of it in the 1960s. And the lengths full’ type of attitude. either side of the tunnel haven’t fared too But time and again, that optimistic view well either, with the eastern end, near has been justified, as ‘impossible’ where it met the Worcester & Birmingham restorations such as the Huddersfield and Canal at Selly Oak, having disappeared Rochdale canals have been completed and under a contaminated ex-industrial site reopened, while others such as the Wey & known as the Battery Park. So it wasn’t Arun and Cotswold Canals, continue to like you could easily open up even the first make good progress in the face of serious new canal route emerges from the undercroft few hundred yards as a step in the right 60 February 2019 Canal Boat canalboat.co.uk restoration the ‘greenway’ leading from the supermarket site to the road bridge and into selly oak park... ...and an impression of what the same view will look like when the ‘greenway’ has become a canal direction. What hope for it, then? major development site which would need But take a walk or a cruise along the some serious ground work first: might Worcester & Birmingham today, peer reinstatement of the canal be included in through the hoardings surrounding a the work? building site alongside the canal just north LCT worked with the local planning of Bridge 80, and you might just spot what authority Birmingham City Council to try looks suspiciously like a canal channel to ensure that this was what would happen taking shape in the gloom under a large – but for several years it was in doubt. The concrete platform. And there’s nothing plans for the site have always involved a that helps the general level of optimism large supermarket development, but its for a canal restoration quite like seeing a location and design changed more than chunk of it actually being built. So how did once as the plans went through various that happen? iterations – as did the level of provision for Some years ago the Battery Park, the canal. At one point it appeared that having been cleared of its former industry this length would be completely recreated (and incidentally the name doesn’t refer to as part of the work; the next version of the electrical batteries, it’s a reference to a plans appeared to omit it entirely. Canal type of metal-bashing process that once supporters held protest boat rallies on the took place there – but the effect in adjacent W&B demanding that the City contaminating the ground is probably Council stick to its guns and insist on full comparable) was in need of reclamation provision in line with its policies; before it could be used for anything else. developers threatened to pull out if they And this provided a possible opportunity had to provide too much. for the canal, most traces of which had And, meanwhile, to reinforce the the ‘greenway’ canal route passes the supermarket disappeared from this area. It was to be a message that a reinstated canal would be a canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat February 2019 61 Lapal Canal WRG volunteers working on the approach to the surviving bridge in selly oak park good thing, LCT (supported by Waterway around, and then turn right into the Lapal. and will need to be disposed of, while the Recovery Group volunteers) held working A new liftbridge will carry the W&B path alongside it will need to be lowered if parties to restore the well-preserved next towpath over start of the Lapal Canal at it is to function as a towpath. length of canal in Selly Oak Park, the junction. The new channel then dives Doglegging slightly to the right as it including an original brick arched bridge underneath the supermarket’s goods passes alongside the (recently opened) (a rarity in Birmingham). And a new road delivery yard in a tunnel-like covered supermarket car park and petrol station, running between the park and the section known as the ‘undercroft’. This the ‘greenway’ then drops down to more development site was provided with a new concrete channel with towpath is being like the correct bed and towpath level to bridge to carry it over the canal. built to full navigable standard, and work reach a bridge carrying it under the main Eventually a compromise was reached. on it is nearing completion. road and into Selly Oak Park. Work carried out as part of the Beyond, the canal emerges into a steel Altogether, the canal works provided development would stop short of creating piled length, which then gives way to an have cost the development funders £2.9m, a fully navigable canal. However a earth-sided channel. And this is where it agreed under a Section 106 Planning ‘greenway’ would be reserved through the gets a little less canal-like for now: the agreement which also provides for the development site for its future route, ‘greenway’ (actually rather brown at the transfer of £500,000 to a ‘canal including a considerable amount of actual moment) hasn’t been excavated to procurement entity’ to go towards construction work – and that work is navigable depth; in fact a sizeable amount completing the canal works – providing nearing completion, having been under of material has been piled up on top of it work starts by 2025. way for much of 2018. Starting at the junction with the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, surprisingly the first piece of work is actually on the ‘wrong’ side of the W&B. A new winding hole (turning point) will be created on the east side just north of the junction. This is because the constricted junction, a result of the way that the canal route has been shoe-horned through the development, is so tight that no boats anything like full length would have anywhere near enough room to turn sharp left from the W&B into the Lapal Canal. So they will use the winding hole to turn the canal in the park: visitor mooring site planned aerial view of supermarket with canal line marked 62 February 2019 Canal Boat canalboat.co.uk restoration fact it’s possible to walk this length and it’s canal beyond there reinstated, actually it’s clear that the route survives largely the opposite. LCT has already decided that unobstructed but filled in. reopening the tunnel is a non-starter, and The study estimates that it would cost a rather than trying to dig a new one it’s further £7m – but that it would pay for planned a new route climbing via new itself in benefits to the area within six locks leading through Woodgate Valley years of opening. So what would attract Country Park to a higher summit level boaters to visit it? The park moorings have before descending to Halesowen. already been mentioned, there are further The three-lock staircase leading up to possible visitor mooring sites, and Weoley the marina would form the first part of a new aqueduxt will be needed over a stream Castle ruins stand near the far end. But a that climb. bigger draw could be to build a 60-berth Make no mistake, as a complete project But more money will be needed to marina at the far end. In the greater this isn’t ever going to be an easy complete the removal of spoil, lowering of scheme of things, the report indicates that restoration or anything like it. But the first the towpath, excavation of the winding this would actually be cost-neutral: the short length is under construction; subject hole and other works. And that’s why (as extra benefits would be balanced by the to a successful funding appeal this will you will see in a leaflet included with this costs, as a flight of three new locks would lead to a half-mile length reopened into issue) LCT has launched an appeal to raise be needed as the land for the marina site Selly Oak Park; the study backs extending another £700,000 to complete the work. (on the site of the former tunnel portal and that to the Tunnel marina site; and that in But on the plus side, that won’t just adjacent brickworks) has been raised by turn creates the first part of the tunnel finish the canal through the supermarket around 30ft since the canal closed.