Canal dream lives on in 21st century

Bill Allen meets the woman at the forefront of efforts to make the dream a reality, and shares some of his own memories of the waterway . . .

DESPITE the best efforts of a bunch of hard-working amateurs, the 15 miles of canal which link Salford with Bolton and Bury remain largely neglected - a decaying reminder of our coal industry in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Since mining started to go into decline in the first half of the last century, no-one has quite known what to do with a stretch of water which has become increasingly unused and unattractive.

It is a hugely expensive regeneration challenge that has been sidestepped for more than six decades.

But not any longer.

A scheme is under way to clear the towpaths and re-open the canal for leisure cruising and walking.

Work is already being done in Salford to link the canal to the River Irwell and from there to seven other North-west canals. Marinas and canalside bars and cafes are more than just a pipe dream.

There is a new enthusiasm being shown by British Waterways and by its partners, Bolton, Bury and Salford councils.

They are finally waking up to what the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Society has been telling them for 18 years.

And Margaret Fletcher is delighted.

Margaret, a 56-year-old former nurse manager, of Trawden Avenue, Bolton, has been the society's chairman since it was formed in 1987.

For most of that time, she and her group have been regarded as well-meaning enthusiasts with an odd weekend hobby.

But now Margaret is being invited to talk at top-level conferences and her society is one of five planning partners with £50 million to spend.

We talked as we walked along the canal towpath at Nob End, Little Lever, a spot reached as you run out of potholes at the end of Boscow Road.

This is the place where the Salford section used to meet the Bury-Bolton length of canal via a "staircase" of six timber and iron locks.

It is part of a marvellously simple but effective engineering concept to link two waterways over a gradient rising by nearly 200 feet.

These days, the 17 separate locks at Nob End are barely visible, hidden among a jungle of brambles and weeds.

But they are there and Margaret is sure they can be brought back to working condition.

She is equally certain that most of the rest of the canal can be made passable.

Opened in 1796, the completed waterway from Salford extended to Church Wharf in Bolton and Irwell Forge at Woodhill Road in Bury.

Early ambitions to link it to the Leeds-Liverpool canal were abandoned.

Its barges provided a means of transport for coal from the many local collieries, but also for stone, sand and slate and the produce of emerging chemical works and cotton mills.

Families in their Sunday best cruised on packet boats until 1838, when the completion of the Bolton to Manchester railway made canal transport in any form uneconomical.

When two serious breaches of the canal occurred in 1936 - one which saw 30 yards of banking at Prestolee collapse 50ft into the River Irwell - there was no desire to repair it.

It was the beginning of the end. Only short sections were navigable and in 1961, the whole canal length was virtually abandoned.

I remember the Bury-Bolton canal as a youngster in the 1960s, sailing a raft from Radcliffe to Little Lever. We even swam in its weed and rat-infested waters where abandoned pups and kittens were a familiarly gruesome find for an inquisitive schoolboy.

A partly sunken, rotting timber coal barge at Ladyshore tested our dexterity and sense of adventure. The mills along its length spewed their waste into the canal, which had only recently been deemed un-navigable.

It was to get much worse before it started to get a little better.

The canal society has been vigilant in its efforts to preserve the waterway's original "line", successfully opposing many damaging planning applications.

But for most of the past 40 years or so, I have seen nothing in the way of improvement.

As we stared at another dried-up stretch, obliterated by the ravages of time, my scepticism was beginning to be noticed by Margaret.

"This regeneration is going to happen," she insisted. "As part of the current Middlewood Locks development in Salford, the canal will be re-connected to the River Irwell and so to the wider canal system, and that will signal the start of improvements and restoration along its whole length, to Bolton and to Bury. It is very exciting for us."

Margaret's optimism is down to a new, more pro-active attitude by government and, more importantly, by British Waterways, which owns 2,000 miles of inland waterways in Britain but which, until the start of the new millennium, was responsible for maintenance and safety only and were unable to spend money on restoration.

Now they plan a nationwide programme of improvements under the banner of "Waterways 2025" and have set a priority deadline of 2012 to bring about significant change locally.

Much of the credit for that, Margaret said, goes to British Waterways' regeneration director Derek Cochrane, who has long been a champion of the canal society's regeneration cause.

Now councils and the pragmatic private sector are also getting "on board", recognising how they can benefit from commercial developments using waterways as a key feature. Look at what has been achieved at Salford Quays or at Castlefield, they say.

The Middlewood Locks scheme, which is expected to create 6,000 jobs, is seen as the catalyst for the canal clean-up, the developers having agreed to incorporate a rebuilt lock and a footbridge in their £600 million scheme for housing, hotels, restaurants and leisure facilities.

At nearby Prince's Bridge, £300,000 of government money is being used to incorporate a tunnel beneath the new Salford-Manchester inner-relief road - more clear evidence of the enlightened thinking about the economic benefits of clean, accessible, useable inland waterways.

Complete reopening much beyond Hall Lane, Farnworth, has been made impossible by the construction of St Peter's Way in Bolton in 1973, and the loss of the terminal warehouses in Bury.

Margaret is convinced that things will happen. And she can't wait.

"There is real enthusiasm now from people like Salford Council and British Waterways. They think it's the best thing since sliced bread," she said.

"But while we welcome the work going on in Salford we would like to see something done in Bolton and in Bury.

And with a smile of satisfaction canal boat owner Margaret concluded: "Eighteen months ago, they thought we were all crazy and should be locked up. We have kept the dream alive."