Peter's Waterways Blog Springs Branch Landslip This was first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in February 2016 about the repairs of the 2015 Boxing Day flooding.

Click to read full issue

Christmas 2015 brought the floods which devastated the Calder Valley and Leeds. Overall it was a brilliant response from C&RT and volunteers, and our autumn trip in 2016 eventually showed the canals mostly restored to their pre-flood state, and still operational while bridge rebuilding continued.

Repairs continuing alongside navigation at Elland Bridge. October 2016

Springs Branch before the rockfall

Except, that is, for the Rochdale for which it was a lawyers' delay rather than an engineering one which had its re-opening delayed until September, too late for navigators in the south to be certain of a passage around the South Pennine Ring. It's always easier to argue about mending a canal instead of actually doing it: it wouldn't have delayed a road or a railway, and we could have made more campaigning noise about it, however sympathetic we were to C&RT's travails. Another flood-repair exception was the Springs Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool. Pennine Cruisers' trip boats introduce many thousands of visitors to this little delight of half-a-mile of canal under the walls of Skipton Castle, and it is the rock supporting these walls that has slipped into the canal. Stoppage Notice of 8 Jan 2016 was updated three days later and the canal is closed until further notice. That's it: there is no further published information. A bit more campaigning there wouldn't go amiss.

Click to read full issue

Reported in the May 2017 Milepost: David Baldacchino, C&RT Waterways Manager for Manchester and Pennine spoke at West Riding Branch AGM in March including an update on the clearance of the rock fall and repair of the Springs Branch in Skipton; C&RT say financial responsibility has now been agreed with the legal advisers of Skipton Castle and while detailed negotiations continue, there is hope of restoring the tripboat to cover the whole of the Branch for the 2018 season. Forlorn hope, as it turned out.

Springs Branch blocked

Reported in the June 2018 Milepost: Springs Branch. This is the delightful secret half-mile of canal north of Skipton Junction which has introduced many thousands of visitors to the canal on the local tripboats. There was a rockfall from the walls holding up the castle during the Boxing Day floods in 2015. The latest website information was dated January 2017 mentioning liaison with the owners of Skipton Castle about the condition of the rock face and ensuring that it was no longer moving. Plans were being developed for clearing the fallen limestone and further investigating the geology of the area to understand the extent and reason for the slip. After a year, I asked for the promised update on progress. C&RT said lawyers were talking to one another, but no website update has emerged. This answer conveys no useful information whatever, and lawyers can live in even bigger houses than they do if we continue to pay them money to talk to one another. We need the results of the study, and a plan to remedy the problems.

Click to read full issue

Extract from the C&RT Stoppages website August 2019 Click for a larger version Click for the latest C&RT website version

More emails, more meetings. And we still can't take a boat past the landslip. From an email to C&RT in February 2019: (there was no reply) As I said in a Milepost article last year, allowing lawyers to talk to one another for ever, just has them all living in larger houses than they already do. And you will have heard this before too: I know it's easier to run a closed canal than an open one, but it does miss the point of being a navigation authority. And it's easier not to update the users of the Stoppages website here, than it is to actually do it. The website still says "From Date: 8th January 2016 To Date: until further notice Type:Navigation Restriction Reason: Structure failure Notice updates: 13/01/2017 @ 14:17 We continue to liaise with owners of Skipton Castle regarding the condition of the rock face and to work towards a suitable resolution." Now that the Springs Branch is run from this side of the Pennines, what are the issues between the parties, and what are the plans for resolving them? And what progress has been made in the three years since the canal was closed?

Peter Scott @peterjohnscott