Reconecting the Chesterfield Canal and Waterside Development

The Future Aqueduct of Chesterfield

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Join me in Derbyshire as we follow the beautiful chesterfield canal as the restoration continues in the west, aiming to plug the gap and join the rest of the restored Chesterfield Canal as it winds its way down to the River Trent.

Today we start at New Lane Bridge and Wheeldon Mill lock and work our way down towards Chesterfield Centre. We take in Station Road Bridge, Several railway Bridges, Locked Lane Bridge, Tipton Lock, Tapton Tunnel and the visitor centre. As we approach Chesterfield it’s clear to see how beneficial the canal is to nature and the environment as the beautiful blue and green corridor enhances the city scene.

Down at Chesterfield Waterside we look at the current progress and future plans of the massive development bringing houses, business and the canal to the city centre near to the Railway station

Chesterfield Canal Trust – https://chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk/membership/how-to-join-the-chesterfield-canal-trust/

Chesterfield Canal Trust Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/cctrust

Chesterfield Waterside – https://chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk/gallery/photos/waterside-in-chesterfield/

Fund Britains Waterways petition – https://www.change.org/p/fundbritainswaterways

All drone footage shot with a DJI mini 3 Pro.

All camera footage shot with an Insta360 RS ONE Inch with Rode Go mic and Lavalier.

Fund Britains waterways – https://waterways.org.uk/waterways/sites/fund-britains-waterways-overview

Keep canals alive (canal and river trust) – https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/support-us/our-campaigns/keep-canals-alive

Rail Map Online – https://www.railmaponline.com

Waterway Routes – https://www.waterwayroutes.co.uk

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today we’re seeing locks we’re seeing new Canal basins and we’re seeing a beautiful green and blue Corridor stretching into the middle of a [Music] city welcome back to darbishire I am on the Chesterfield Canal we are walking towards Chesterfield uh center right now we’re going to start this walk today at New lane bridge and Wen mil loock and before I just start at the bottom here you can see the Overflow running down through here lovely little waterfall I’m not sure if that’s the stream coming in as well it seems to be quite a lot of water running through but there’s not a lot of water running down this canal at the moment which we will see why shortly let’s pop up to the top though and have a little look at the lock so in 1997 the society completed the restoration of the Wilder Mill lock this was the last lock in darbishire it was helped by the wrg groups just going to cross over here cuz there’s a so there’s there’s a lovely sort of spill we coming over the end here there was a duck out on there second the G he’s moved unfortunately always be careful if you’re Crossing locks obviously this one’s got quite a nice wide path actually yeah so this is a spill wear this takes any overflow I’m wrong there is quite a lot of water coming through here you can see where it goes down under the lane there and it will drop down below the lock these Gates got 2012 on them so I assume they didn’t put gates in when they originally restored the lock or they’ve had to replace them already sounds a bit soon really cuz some about 20 to 30 years for a wooden lock but we’re going to walk up now uh towards a city I think it’s a city of Chesterfield and uh see what’s going on in the center there’s uh something quite exciting happening this is station roadbridge and uh this was completed in the year 2000 now this was one of the few blockages left after a second Grant was awarded to dabshire County Council to complete the restoration between Chesterfield and stavely you also had a BBY Bridge which was built sort of in 2002 which is behind us and this allowed uh navigation of the four route uh into Chesterville there’s a bit of a now down towards Chesterfield City Center where we’re going to have a look at the plans uh right at that end basically on the river R end uh to see what’s going to happen there’s a few interesting things happening down there which are really going to benefit the canal it’s quite an ambitious project they’ve got here for the time scale they’ve got the um norw tunnel to do which is quite a long tunnel now the tunnel itself cannot be restored but just kind of not far down from the the Eastern portal of the tunnel the canal is uh restored and it’s all all running so there are only in fact 9 miles of canal between the section at the end of here and the other end of the tunnel that need to be restored and the trust have a plan to do it this decade that’s what I read anyway that may be that may be slightly wrong but I saw 2027 and 2028 I know that’s been delayed slightly because hs2 did put a spanner in the works at staely there was no idea whether it was going to go ahead or not so it wasn’t the main route of hs2 it was a uh Branch coming off to have a Works uh so they could repair engines and all that sort stuff uh and that was going across a canal which you’ll see in my previous video so that left a number of delays uh which hopefully now are sorted I think it’s this Summer that that contract for that bit of land ends with HST so they can actually see what they need to do there to get through so now those delays are gone they can start working so it’s going to be interesting to see what happens and hopefully we will see a canal going through on this channel quite a lot over the next few years fantastic to cover it and if it does get done this decade and fair play done and this can’t happen without your help so Canal trusts need members to get funding it’s part of the bigger you are the more lucky you are to get these funding rounds when they come around so please do look in the description and sign up and help them restore the rest of this canal and then anyway we’re at the there’s a couple of Railway Bridges here taking the uh obviously the railways away from the station which is sort of down in that direction the railway plays a huge part in all of this canal further up on the stavely town deal section if uh you see the maps there it was absolutely littered with Railways back in the day this one’s just a sort of a steel G type one and this uh leads down then onto tap and lock which is they have a visitor center and a little tunnel and stuff as well we’re in the center of Chesterfield pretty much we’re not far from the train station at all and can you hear that this is why the canals are needed in these urban areas this green Corridor behind us it’s just teaming with bird life and life is you see the fish in the canal and everything and you’ve got people all over the place walking dogs running cycling it’s really busy down here actually and this is what I keep saying about the canals they’re not just for boats they’re for everybody you’ve got everybody using it the Walkers cyclists uh the boat is obviously as well in nature it’s a perfect combination to bring these corridors through into cities and across Countryside and those nature corridors are really important when it comes to diversity in the genetics of of animals if you have isolated sections of environment you don’t get spread of genetics if you spread that genetics with a long straight blue and green Corridor you spread all of those animals and they breed with with other other Islands effectively nature so let’s take a step back into the mid 80s now there was plans for a bypass f up the canal which was going to cut the canal off and the Canal Trust in I think it’s 1985 wrote a document basically trying to figure out the support for the trust and in 1988 I had a meeting to see just how popular the trust was and they get 14,000 signatures which were handed to dubik County Council opposing the blockade of the canal and this is a Lockford lane bridge which is obviously newer and then tapped and lock anyway so the council then gave permission for the Canal Trust to restore this lock and the uh Visitor Center above it so this was a chosen project because of the uh obviously how visible it is from the road there uh and there listed building this as well so in a year and a half the uh Society came along and they emptied 9 ft of mud out of here and they repaired it f new lck gates and it was reopened in 1990 on the 29th of April and they won an award for it as well so what’s actually happening here is there was a leak uh from here last year not H by the the uh the weather obviously there’s a lot of water coming down through here so it was running down here and running down into the river rer below and you can see through here are a bunch of sort of sandbag type uh bits which are the wall they have no idea exactly where the Le’s coming from it’s a very um probably poorest sort of area so they’ve dug a trench down through and they’ve done various repairs for it I I asse by looking at what’s here as they put a clay wall in there and the hope is that they can stop that leak and that that’s it done so this is closed and drained all the way through for that reason so we we jump across the other side of there and Caren and I walk down into Chesterfield so I’m back on the other side as close as I can get the uh tunnel is just up there behind me and here we have the river robber this is the first sign of it which is where the canal now goes to so just here you have it’s not a lock here it’s it’s like a Floodgate so this is not designed to carry a boat up or down it’s to stop if the river floods is to stop the water all coming back up through the canal and flooding the canal further down and then you got this pretty little bridge over the top uh and then you’re kind of into the river R streetway underneath this isn’t the toe path side but I just want to show you the winding gear and stuff over here so much of the line was lost the old Basin was built on in the center of town which was down by the train station so the trust kind of have nowhere to go after this other than you know slight bit of navigable river but what is happening is the water side project the chestfield water side project now that is there to put several basins in the town and there was there going to be a river link to a sort of a canal by the side of the river which I believe has now been scrapped but that’s going to move to just a navigable river down to the basins which gives a an end point for the canal again in Chesterfield again you can just see how green it is down here it’s full of wildlife see the Ducks everywhere look up on the wall there so you got like an overflow there so the water runs back into the river rather than flooding as well as as another defense and what you can already see here is the start of the whole development so they wanted to build a big Warehouse on it B Warehouse I believe it was and I think it’s a Canal Trust petition the council to not just build a massive Ugly Warehouse next to the canal and to actually open it up to housing shops restaurants pubs as well as Canal basins and and and that as well so these houses are built because of that and it’s a much prettier backdrop for the canal than the massive construction of a warehouse so the land both sides of the river is here is Du to be developed this side obviously hasn’t started yet it’s more warehouses and stuff but this side has and the the link if it was built would have run through those houses it would have started a bit further back where we were talking a minute ago and then carried on down through the plan is for 1 and a half thousand houses 30,000 square meters of Office business and industrial space shops restaurants and ledure uses as well and it sits on what was the old Basset Factory site now a canal needs a destination every always without a destination it’s uh it’s not going anywhere and people won’t go down the canal so having this Basin here does help you can’t really see a lot here at the moment the basins have been cut out there there ready to go and they’re just prepping the land and getting ready to build on here obviously part of the development has started further down and it’s continuing out through here I think they’re still building a hous is on the end actually uh but the hope is very soon you’ll have boats coming up to here and up to the bridge that we got here there’s no navigation Beyond this point I don’t believe there will be boats in the river now that will help with the river as well a lot of cleaning up of the river and stuff which is a uh massive benefit yeah it’s very shallow here you can see so there’s no way it’s going to be coming up Beyond this point here so thanks for watching have a great day [Music]