Planning Madness

The Grantham Canal Society is appealing for our help to fight an instance of planning lunacy!

The Grantham Canal is gradually being restored. It's a long canal and there are plenty of obstacles but the restoration is making progress.

Then along comes the Highways Agency, currently planning to build a new line for a section of the A46 trunk road. The new road will cross the line of the canal near Cropwell Locks.

Has the Highways Agency taken the canal into account? Yes, of course they have - the plans include a bridge under the new road that will be fully navigable and include a tow path.

So what's the problem? It seems that, almost within sight of this new bridge, a feeder road linking nearby villages with the new road is to cross the canal at ground level, with no bridge planned. This is at the site of the original Bridge 16, Joshua Mann's Bridge.

So, immediately, this makes the new bridge pointless and puts into question the whole viability of the canal restoration! What madness!

The Society reckons that it would only cost an additional £300K to build a bridge of navigable height at the same time as the rest of the road-building. However, if no bridge is built at this time it could cost millions to build it later, with much disruption to locals. This would be a pointless waste of money for the sake of saving a little bit now.

Apparently, the only way that the plans can be altered at this stage is if the Secretary of State commands it. So the Canal Society is pleading with all who support its aims to contact the Secretary of State asking him to do just that.

If you want to support them, please write to:
Lord Adonis, Secretary of State for Transport,
The House of Lords,
Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA

More info can be found in a letter from the Vice Chair here. Short of lying down in front of the bulldozers, this seems to be the only thing that we canal folk can do to help fight this madness. But hurry - work is supposed to be starting very soon!

ben-9