News Item:  18th March 2010

The following is taken from the BCA Web Site:

Navigation Update Addendum 12th March 2010
  
West Hart Embankment Repair - Crookham, Update

A meeting took place on Wednesday 10th March at the BCA Offices in Mytchett with the Hampshire County Council Chief Structural Engineer, specialist geotechnical consultant engineers and the preferred principal contractor for the final repair work at West Hart Embankment.

Later a site visit showed that the damming of Crookham Wharf Bridge and Double Bridge in order to immediately isolate the affected embankment is working well and that the water level of the canal on that section has reduced. 

This allowed a closer inspection of the section of embankment in question and revealed that there was no water emerging through the surface of the bank.  This indicates that the leaks are limited to the side of the canal rather than the bed.  This being the case, repair works will be considerably easier to manage and ought to be possible without fully draining this section of canal any further. This also means that a fish rescue and any further ecological impact is now unlikely.

Further planning is now being undertaken on the specification and the extent of the works needed.  Although it is not possible to give a clear intended start or finish date at the moment, the contractors are in a position to commence work as soon as these preliminaries have been completed.

With the intended design solution now agreed, it should be possible to recover optimal water levels quite quickly once the repair to the bank is completed. In the mean time water levels will be maintained as described in the earlier update on the 8th March 

A cautionary note is that because we have restricted the normal flow of water from the top summit pound and in order to conserve levels where possible, balancing natural supply with output and avoiding any over topping of banks, levels will inevitably be lower than usual for this time of year. This will be noticeable from Crookham through and on down the canal into Surrey. Hopefully, this will not have an immediate adverse effect on navigable levels in Surrey but is somewhat weather dependant and at the moment expected rainfall is low.

Ian  Brown
Canal Director

Back to News Index