December 2001

Towards the end of November we had a rethink of our position regarding work on Stage 6, the offside wall between the stop lock and Little Tring Bridge. We had hoped to continue readymix pours but events put us slightly off-course. Firstly, the original programme was to plant the first 100 metres of towpath hedge from the tip end towards Little Tring Bridge this year, the rest next Year. However, an approach to the Countryside Management Services Wildwood Project for a grant towards the hedge planting resulted in an offer of a grant of £644 for the entire 230 metres up to the bridge as they had funds in their current financial year but would have no funds for the next year. This meant that we had to divert resources to clearing out the extra length of ground and levelling off between the fence and the towpath wall during November. The hedge plants were delivered on Wednesday 28th November and are to be planted at the December 1st/2nd Working Party under the guidance of Ken Graves.

Secondly, a deep reinforced concrete raft has had to be constructed in lieu of blinding under wall section 51, the offside wall adjacent to the bridge. This is both to give a wide base to the wall and to bridge the old and new gas main trenches under this section. Sheet steel piling (kindly lent to us by British Waterways) had to be placed in the sand infill used by the contractors as backfill to the abutment of the new bridge to allow construction of the raft. Fortunately the raft was complete before the torrential rain in November turned the sand almost liquid and pushed the piles forward. The piles were strutted and are clear of the new wall formwork. Nevertheless the work on the raft took time added to which we lost one and a half days due to torrential rain; the plus side was that our site hut had a complete tidy up, including a load to the local tip, while we were rained-off!

At a special work party last week the excavation of the old offside wall right up to the lock was completed and has exposed the 'S' bend at the end of the lock with bull nosed blue bricks oil top. Demolition of the old concrete offside wall is proceeding but it is a long and laborious task using an hydraulic breaker but we are benefiting from a load of hardcore to form the temporary road for the ready-mix lorries. We are now far enough advanced with blinding to recommence pouring base and wall sections, commencing with base 52 on Saturday I" December 2001 and wall 50 on Wednesday 12th December 2001. It has not been easy setting out curves for the wall along this section and leave room for the footpath at the bottom of the steep bank. The old wall did not allow for the extra width of a footpath now required by modern standards.

In order to get ready-mix lorries close enough to the walls, we are having to lower the old canal bed leading up to the lock by two or three feet before laying the hardcore road. It was hoped to continue this at the December 1st/2nd 2001 work party but the present rains have made our temporary roads very wet and, as we know from experience, it only churns them up to continually run dumpers over them. Instead, at this work party, it is intended to place the sheet steel piles in the end of the lock to complete the bund (dam) to accommodate the footpath/towpath walkers clear of the work required to connect the new walls to the end of the lock. Finally I must express my gratitude to all of you who have worked so hard throughout the year despite the bad weather conditions and especially those who have worked extra days to try and catch up with our programme.

At the November meeting of the Trust Council the question of the Trust Web Site was debated and it was agreed to have a new site covering every aspect of the Trust's activities, Torkel Larsen to run the main site with a linked Festival site run by another Trust member, Peter Andrews. This is likely to operate early in the New Year and will be accessible under the present working party web site address until new web site addresses are published in this Newsletter and the Trust's Newsletter. I must express my appreciation to Trust Member Richard Emsley who has looked after our Web Site from the beginning of 1999 until now. One reason for the change is that we now have digital cameras recording events at work parties and Richard is too far away from us to keep the web site up to date as a result of this advance in technology.

November 2001

On three occasions recently we have had to curtail our operations because of bad weather. The demolition of the old canal wall is taking more time than anticipated but we have now found that a hydraulic breaker is the best tool for the job. We have had additional problems in excavating for and blinding on the south east of Little Tring Bridge. We have now successfully laid a wide reinforced concrete raft for the first section and completed blinding for the second section. To do this we had to support the bank at the bridge for the first section with sheet steel piles kindly lent to us by BW. The reinforced concrete raft not only bridges the gas main trenches but gives a wide base which is being keyed into a narrow base wall for the first section supporting the high bank (the rest of the wall from the bridge to the lock is narrow base). After torrential rain this last weekend the loose sand behind the piles caused a landslip forcing the tops over but thankfully Barry Martin spotted this and told me and I have now been able to put struts in position which I am 99% certain will stop any further collapse. The struts are all clear of the base construction and only one strut fouls the wall construction and can be removed once the base is cast. Hertfordshire Countryside Management has offered us a grant of £560 covering most of the cost of a new towpath hedge between the bridge and the end of Phase I. The complication is that they have offered us this grant for the whole 200 metre length this year, as they will have no funds for us next year. Our intention had been to plant the first half this year at the November Work Party where the ground is already cleared. In November we now have to clear the other 100 metres and plant the full 200 metres (600 plants) in December.

I am acutely conscious that the demands on our time over the last few months have been rather excessive and am truly grateful to all those who have helped. Nevertheless the November 1st/2nd/3rd/4th and December 1st/2nd Work Parties in particular require the maximum number of volunteers possible, especially on the Saturdays and Sundays when we have to deal with the towpath hedge clearance and planting as well as concrete pours and moving formwork. It really does help if you can let me know in advance whether or not you are coming to any Work Party. Some volunteers have already given me advance notice but, even if you cannot let me know until the day before it does help me to plan work if I know before the day who is coming. I am also most grateful to those ladies who are coming to the November and December Work Parties to help with the towpath hedge clearance and planting.

October 2001

First and foremost I must thank all those who have given so much of their time in recent weeks, including BITM during the WRG `non-event' week in August. Whilst we have not yet caught up with the original programme, we have reduced the delay from over four months to under three months and will hopefully improve on this during October and November if we can staff all the dates in this issue's Dates for Working Parties and the weather does not deteriorate like last winter. In this connection will you please let me know at least two weeks in advance those days you are available so that I can plan plant hire and ready-mix deliveries in good time. I have received several queries as to why we are working at the winding hole and not at the bridge, which is much more in the public view. I even had a query last week from a potential volunteer who asked why we were not doing anything at the moment! He had been viewing the site from the bridge and therefore could not see the progress at the winding hole.

The reason is that it was not possible to work near the bridge from July last year until April this year was because the bridge contractor blocked our access, followed by the closure of the site until April 9th because of foot and mouth restrictions. Whilst Priory Construction were on site rebuilding the bridge, they kindly lent us their plant free of charge and we took advantage of this to remove the stumps all the way to Whitehouses and also to excavate for the wall at the winding hole. The wall excavation left a very steep bank some seventy metres long very close to the BW boundary fence, so priority has to be given to completing the wall before this coming winter, as any subsidence would affect the adjoining landowner. In addition, I had assured the tenant farmer that we would give top priority to this work. Because of foot and mouth restrictions, only the work party were allowed west of Little Tring Bridge during the 2001 Festival so we did carry out the construction of a short length of wall supporting the west offside bank at the bridge in May/June so that the general public could see us at work. I hope that this explains the reasons behind the programme of work so far this year. I keep records of all work as we complete it and the following statistics regarding the number of ready-mix pours shows that the three months ending 30th September 2001 was our busiest quarter to date for pouring ready-mix concrete, mainly thanks to the week in August:

Future Programme

1 To complete the winding hole wall and backfill.
2 To complete the first wall section on the lock/offside of Little Tring Bridge to allow Priory
Construction to reinstate the footpath steps removed during the bridge rebuilding in
November/December this year. This means pouring the first two base sections and the first
wall section. The first section will be wide base (1500mm) but the second section will be
narrow base (875mm) as will all the rest of the sections joining up with the lock). This work
entails piling the bank at the bridge prior to excavation and BW are kindly lending us some
sheet steel piles which we hope to place over the Friday 5th to Sunday 7th October 2001 work
party.
3 As soon as the sheet steel piles are removed from the bank at the bridge, some of them will
be used to support a footpath/towpath across the stop lock where the lock gate recesses are at
the west end of the stop lock. The present chestnut fencing will be re-sited so that the general
public can cross from the footpath to the towpath side clear of the end of the lock which can
then be exposed on the offside (footpath) side of the lock for joining up to the new wall.
4 The offside wall (Stage 6) between the bridge and the stop lock will then be completed and
the footpath restored, hopefully in time for the 2002 Wendover/Tring Canal Festival.
5 Once the footpath is reopened, the towpath between the lock and the bridge will be closed so
towpath walkers will have to cross over to the footpath side to get to Little Tring Road. This
will enable us to construct the narrow base wall on the towpath side between the lock and the
bridge (Stage 5), backfill and reopen the towpath between the lock and the new wooden steps
at the bridge up to Little Tring Road.
6 The next task will be to continue the towpath wall under the bridge (Stage 4) to join up with
the Stage 1 towpath wall already completed. At the same time work can commence on
profiling the canal bed between the lock and the bridge ready for Bentonite lining. This will
be an ideal length for us to experiment with laying and protecting the lining (Stage 7).
7 The final wall construction will be another 15 base/ 16 wall sections on the offside from the
bridge to the old farm crossing to complete Stage 2. During last August, BITM excavated the
next eight sections of this wall and whilst this is not a priority at present, any spare resources
will be used to trim out for blinding with surplus ready-mix concrete. This work has now
been complicated by badgers who took up residence in enlarged rabbit burrows under the
footpath when it was closed to the public between July 2000 and June 2001 (because of the
bridge rebuilding and, subsequently, the foot and mouth outbreak). The Chairman of the
Herts and Middlesex Badger Group does not think the badgers will stay now the footpath has
reopened (Dacorum Borough Council have laid a timber `bridge' over the entrance to the
sett) but the Trust will have to obtain a badger licence in the second half of next year as we
will then require to work within the 25 metre restricted radius of a badger sett.
8 In parallel with 7 above, profiling of the bed for the Bentonite lining, laying the lining and
placing the protective layer can proceed as work proceeds from the bridge to the far end of
the Phase 1 restoration and the end bund (Stage 8) so leading to completion in time for the
Festival 2004.

August 2001

At last we seem to be making progress after the bad weather and foot & mouth closure of the site. Four base sections, two at Little Tring Bridge and two at the winding hole end have been cast. We had hoped to make great progress during the WRG camp week 11th to 18th August when we were expecting at least twenty WRG volunteers but I have today heard that, apart from four BITM members who are staying for the whole week, there were only two WRG volunteers! To make matters worse, the camp leader and his deputy are now unable to come and, at the time of writing, there are no cooking arrangements from Sunday onwards. WRG have decided to send their only two volunteers to work at Droitwich leaving us with only the four BITM members for the whole week. BITM have come to the rescue in that they are spending Saturday 1lth and Sunday 12th with us with a good turnout of about 18 members.

As a result our hopes of one if not two pours a day in order to catch up with the programme of work have now evaporated. Just to make matters worse our target of' having both a base and a wall section to pour on Saturday 11th was blown off course by thunderstorms and heavy rain today (9t"). Although we completed the wall formwork for a pour on Saturday, the state of the roadway by the end of the day may mean cancelling the ready-mix if there is a danger of the lorry getting stuck. A further delay is the extra depth we are having to excavate for a length of the wall near the winding hole due to poor ground conditions. It is not possible to use an excavator for this work, which is using up a lot of manpower, again making it difficult to get back on programme. Finally, many thanks to those who kept the work going so well in my absence on summer cruising during June and July.

I am sure that you will be as sorry as I was to receive the news that Jim Powell is leaving us to return to the Isle of Man on August 19t". Jim got us started with plant operation and his advice and experience will be sorely missed. Nevertheless we wish him all the best for the future and hope that he will visit us if he returns to the mainland in the future. Ray Orth, our Health & Safety Co-ordinator has agreed to take over Jim's job as Excavator and dumper examiner.

June 2001

Although we had to stop work on site for six weeks due to foot and mouth disease, the following work has been completed or is in progress in various workshops and home garages:

Ron Pittaway has manufactured standard 10mm bolts with wing nuts and captive washers one end for all the base shuttering. This will greatly speed up assembly and removal from the cast concrete. He has also obtained hollow metal bars for forming the water stop groove in the base that Eddy Evans and Brian Ing have tapered for easy removal; a great improvement on the ` wooden formers that were always difficult to remove without being damaged.

Eddy Evans has manufactured new adjustable supports for the base of the steel shutter panels for the wall using left/right handed threaded rod obtained by Ray Orth; what will we do now Ray has retired! As a result of a risk assessment in connection with handling these steel panels we had already used adjustable wooden blocks but the new design will be even safer and speed up erection and dismantling. Eddy has also made metal formers for the pseudo vertical joints in the front face of the wall.

Ken Graves has machined the new timber cross struts for the base of the offside wall from the winding hole to the bridge where BW require a 1500mm base instead of the 875mm base.

I am making a set of double sided base shutters with an 8000mm curve for the convex/concave curves required at Little Tring Bridge where the canal width narrows to go under the bridge. Priory Construction have left us their scaffold poles beiit to 8000mm radius that they used for the bridge wing walls and Ron Pittaway and myself have already tested our 600mm steel panels with them to check that we will get a reasonable curved wall at this radius.

We resumed restoration work on 9th April 2001 and have now completed road repairs up to the winding hole site. Ron Pittaway and a weekday work party have spent a day bending reinforcement for the wide base wall at the winding hole. It was the intention to cast the two offside sections of wall adjacent to Little Tring Bridge before the Festival but foot and mouth and the state of the road approaching the bridge have ruled this out so we will be concentrating on blinding for the winding hole wall and setting up the first pour of base shuttering.

I am proposing that wall construction closely follows the blinding so that we can order ready-mix concrete to the nearest half cubic metre above that required for a pour and use the surplus in our mixers with additional all-in ballast as weak mix blinding concrete. A risk assessment has been made concerning the use of the temporary road above the winding hole, bearing in mind that it will still be in use during Phase II for access to the triangle for tipping. As a result an Armco guard rail will be installed where the road width is tightly confined behind the top of the wall.

I am hopeful that we can work some extra weekdays and/or weekends to try and catch up on the four months that we have lost but these will have to be by an ad-hoc arrangement over the phone. In this connection, I must stress that at any working party there must be a designated person in charge; if work is at more than one geographical location, each site has to have a person in charge but one of these must be in overall charge of the restoration site on the day. All present at a location must be told who is the person in charge, and who is in overall charge if applicable. Although we are volunteers and do not expect workplace style command structures, we still have to observe Health & Safety Regulations, the requirements of our Insurers and have a Duty of Care to all of our volunteers. In my absence from site, it is my responsibility to nominate persons in charge so please contact me by phone if you arrange an additional work party. If I cannot be contacted, the Trust's Health & Safety Co- ordinator, Ray Orth, will act on my behalf.

Little Tring Bridge
The bridge reopened to traffic in early March and the estimated cost to the Trust is currently £2l5,432 against our 1997 budget figure of £222,000. The bridge has already won a Highly Commended award in a competition held by the Chiltern Conservation Group and the Chiltern Society, thanks to the Trust deciding to have a typical canal bridge rather than a box culvert, an excellent design by BW and a well executed contract by Priory Construction supervised by BW.

March 2001

Some of you will be aware that we had to cancel the work party last Sunday with BITM because of fears of infection from the foot & mouth outbreak. This was at the request of Keith Slade who farms the land adjoining the canal bed at Whitehouses. His farm also adjoins the canal bed by the winding hole and, although he did not ask us to stop concreting this Saturday and Sunday, after discussions with him and BW, I decided that it was in everyone's interest to make the above cancellations. The future position is that strimming at Drayton Beauchamp and scrub clearance at Whitehouses is suspended until further notice. Excavation and blinding at Little Tring will recommence when the current situation regarding the foot & mouth epidemic becomes clearer. It has been suggested that we arrange some additional weekend and weekday working parties once the epidemic is over as we are already behind schedule because of the bad weather and the delay in repairing the road through the tip because we are awaiting the exit of the Little Tring Bridge contractor. The bridge will open to traffic on Friday 2nd March - over two months late. I would add that the footpath along the towpath between Little Tring and Drayton Beauchamp has closed in that notices have been put up requesting the public not to use them and fishing of the reservoirs has been stopped because fishermen come from a wide area.

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