Swindon Link's Barrie Hudson met with the Swindon chair of the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust, Chloe Ford to discuss the charity's aims for the near future.
For Chloe Ford and her colleagues there is no question that their charity will succeed in its aim.
And when it does so, that success will be apparent to everybody in the Swindon area and for miles beyond.
The aim is simple.
“Wilts and Berks Canal Trust,” said Chloe, “is an organisation that wishes to restore the Wilts and Berks Canal from just below Melksham at Semington and approximately 70 miles up to Abingdon in Oxfordshire, where it joins the Thames.
“It connects the Kennet and Avon at one end and the Thames at the other.
“The whole 70 miles will have water access for boats of all kinds. Ninety percent of all canal users are towpath users, so we expect cyclists, walkers, joggers, hikers and, for the smaller sections where people live, paddle boarders, dinghies, kayaks.
“It will be accessed and used by all, open for all.”
So far the trust has realised this ambition with six miles of the waterway, and Chloe was interviewed near the Wichelstowe mooring of its vessel, Dragonfly, which takes visitors on trips.
The mooring is near the Hall & Woodhouse pub and restaurant, whose canalside location is a major attraction according to online reviews.
According to Chloe, bringing in commercial revenue for a broad range of companies is only one of the benefits the restoration will draw to the waterside.
She said: “We’re hoping to encourage businesses.
“The Canal and River Trust recently did a UK study, and going on their study of what wealth business-wise canals can bring to the UK, 70 miles of restored canal going through rural and town would bring £200m in long-term benefit to the area.
“It would bring canal side cafes, canalside pubs - Hall and Woodhouse is an example. It wasn’t there a few years ago and now you’ve got a canalside pub. That’s just one on the open body of water, but there would be many.
“Once we’re open to boaters, local shops and things like that will benefit as well. With the Kennet and Avon and many of the Northern canals we see things like pop-up launderettes and all sorts of things connected to where the boaters go.”
Chloe stresses that there are many benefits beyond commercial ones.
“The water brings everything that lives in or near water - we attract everything that rivers attract. The bird life is phenomenal. We’ve got swans and there’s a heron always seen at Westlea.
“All of these things do not thrive when there’s no canal there. When it’s just an abandoned field you’ll see much less wildlife than you do at an active canal.
“There are lots and lots of studies now saying people in urban areas need to go to a green space to relax, to wind down. There are massive mental health implications.
“There was a recent study nationwide which found that people in most urban spaces did not have enough access to green space.”
The trust has existed in its current form since the late 1990s, roughly 200 years after construction work on the original canal began.
It has about 2,580 members, and people can join for as little as £1.50 a month singly, £2 for a couple or £20 per year.
Members can volunteer for the trust’s various projects should they wish.
Current work includes a plan to take the canal beneath the M4.
The waterway was officially closed by act of Parliament in 1914, several years after the last vessel passed along it.
It had long been eclipsed by the railway, much of the material for which had been brought via the canal to Swindon.
Chloe joined the trust a little over three years ago, having been intrigued by an old YouTube video showing a glimpse of a long-abandoned canal lock near Grove in Oxfordshire.
Tracking it down for a video on her own Youtube channel, called Retro Ratz, she was told by commenters that the structure was part of the Wilts & Berks Canal, and then learned about the work of the trust.
Her channel has a section devoted to history and the trust’s own website can be found at www.wbct.org.uk
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