The Missing Mile Important Update!

Cotswold canals – The missing mile.

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What’s happening on the missing mile? The amazing news from the planning offices that have authorised this amazing project. Join us as we go from The new construction of the A38 roundabout and the canal beneath it. Including a bit on the line from Occupation bridge and the new run under the M5. Then follow us as we explore all the way to the New Westfield Lock, past the football pitches, training ground and football stadium building site for Forest Green Rovers and onto John Robinson Lock,. We then explore the spill weir, Eastington Church, the Vole traps and Dock and pike Lock finishing the video near to Blunder Lock and the Mud boat sat by the slipway. The canal is traditionally known as the Stroudwater navigation which ran from Saul junction to just beyond Stroud before joining the Thames and Severn to the Thames at Inglesham.

All drone footage shot with a DJI mini 3 Pro, all camera footage shot with an Insta360 RS with rode go mic and lavalier.

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So I’m here at the lovely River fr the busy M5 how’d you get can under Here so I’m on the missing mile this is a section of the cotv canal that is as it might suggest missing this several reasons for this mainly due to the M5 motay which is just across the fields over there now we’re here to explore it today as around two weeks ago had an

Email from somebody and they said that there was a planning meeting going on I didn’t know about it and it was a final decision on whether the rest of this project can go ahead first off you have this section there this is just behind that’s the bridge we were just under and

This section is going to be dredged now at the moment this is closed down from here for works because they are working on putting hard standing in so they can do with the Dron from the toe path rather than doing it from a boat it’s

Much cheaper to do it that way and much easier this is all going to be cleared all the way down to the river FR which is kind of just over in that direction and then that goes into another lock and out towards Soul Junction I’m not going

To go too much further down here because I’ve covered this on other videos and it’s not the reason for today’s video because you can see the compound is starting to take shape they put this hard standing down and this means as you can see diggers and dumpers and stuff

Can come around here and dig from the bank you’ve got the Long Reach a greeny Bluey excavator up there and the yellow one as well so they can clear all of this got occupation Bridge there which is in pretty good condition and then you’ve got the um fuel pipeline which is

Aviation fuel for the airfields in Birmingham that comes from I think a sharp nest gra mouth docks I can’t remember which docks which also needs to be moved as well so I was surprised when I put the Drone up to see this quite beautiful pattern on the on the ground

Now these are scrapes now the idea of these is that they create a wetland habitat and I think there’s going to be sloes onto the river that are going to be able to fill these up so they can control the amount of water in them and it’s part of the cotwell Canal’s

Connected vision of creating a habitat all the way along the canal now the canal connects these habitats so this will connect to other ones and it creates a massive area for to get a diverse genetic through various different sort of wetland species so these two Bridges here are part of the

Large roundabout which is kind of just above us now they were built as part of the missing mile about 3 or 4 years ago and they were the first part of what is effectively the missing M from here on towards sort of dock and Pike lock which

Is further up the canal and an area I’ve covered quite a bit there’s been sort 3 years now of wrangling to get this through Main to do with uh the environment agency and we get into that in a minute to further down but right now where we’re coming we’ll be coming

Underne this is going towards stra the direction we’re walking and right here there’s going to be a lock and what you can’t see is on these roundabouts on the other side the canal used to follow a different route and it followed the line of the road which

Where visit in a second across there so there was once Bristol Road Bridge and lock just on the other side there so this is a replacement to bring the lock back to its original sort of height there is also going to be another lock further down which again we’ll get to

Soon this then leads into a Morin Basin now this dig here is nothing to do with the canal this is this is archaeological but what you’re going to have here is a visitor center you’re going to have Moorings you’re going to have a calf and you’re

Going to have a an apartment above the above the main building which will house the sort of the manager of the complex and if we walk further up in a second I’ll show you the old routs you can really see all the sort of test pits they’ve done here everywhere to sort of

Check all of this I’m not too sure what they were looking for but they uh they spent a bit of time here they sort of cleared the top layer off and then then the usual pits so the canal is going to go across from that corner there and

Work its way over towards the M5 so we’re just on the edge of that sort of moring basin there and through this kit and Gates and we’re on to the a419 now the canal used to run straight through there and just in the end there you might see red and

Black car and white van that’s where the roundabout is we started this video and the canal will run across here and then an angle across the field there so you can kind of see how this has been excavated you’ve got the roundabout over there the lock and then you’ve got the

Kind of quite square shape and then coming round so this will be the kind of way out of the little moing Basin through here and then directly across towards the river FR again and the river FR is taking quite a big role in the future of this canal due to the M5 just

Over there it’s going to be prohibit expensive to actually build a new cut underneath the underneath the motorway behind me here we have the river FR and across these fields here is where the canal is going to run we came from all the way over there the canal is

Going to come you might be able to see the concrete in a distance Canal’s going to come across here roughly kind of in between these trees here and then it’s going to come down to the M5 now the M5 was built in the late 60s and early 70s

In a time where nobody cared about canals they were just a dirty ditch and staying on the local planning that needed to be erased and it wasn’t until the 70s when sort of canal restoration really started to take off and the cwell Canal Trust uh was formed in 1972 and it

Was formed by a chap called Michael aland I hope I pronounce that right and there was a road being built I believe it was and they were going to build on the entire route but the problem is the M5 had already been built as you can see

Right now now how low we are here to the to the motorway this only just clears this River if they dropped into the river and followed the course of the river which a lot of canals do now they would never get head height underneath for any boats So the plan is to come

Down to here and then drop obviously with locks lower and you’re going to be lower than the river level you’re going to come into a trough then on this side of the river and it’s going to be lower than the height of the river with a wall

In and you’re going to go through the middle there I’m not even going to attempt to walk under that not a chance but that does create one problem you’re going to lose your toe path you can’t really get a toe path through there it’s it’s narrow enough as it is and this is

Where all the issues that come from with environment agency all the three years of planning and messing around probably longer than that behind the scenes has been because they had to prove this wasn’t going to be come an issue with flooding and and and all that lot and

River flows here being restricted by the width of the canal tunnel or the canal trough causing issues on the other side stopping the water being able to flow through causing a backup on the other side so where are all the Walkers the cyclists the horse riders all the other

Users of the canal going to go you know these days canals aren’t just about the boats that are going to be used them it’s going to be it’s all about everyone the well-being the health and wellbeing benefits of people being able to walk and cycle the canal and get out in the

Beautiful British Countryside in fresh air he says with a Motorway behind him so let’s hop over and we’ll get back on the old Route and we see where we can go so if you look at water routs now we are right here you’ve got the old canos to run across there

Back up to the road where we were a minute ago and that is here so it ran across the corner of that Council Depot and then ran through approximately here just in front of us now when they built the M5 they were put in a tunnel for the farmer it’s kind of

Like a cattle drive so this is a tunnel now this is going to be the tow path we’re kind of a field across from where we just were over there and uh this is quite nasty in the moment as you can probably hear it’s sticking I apologize

If the lights really bad on this as well this isn’t my usual camera I usually use a 360 camera I drove all the way up here and realized that my Sou stick which is the only one that fits it cuz it’s got needs a longer bit on it it’s still at

Home so I am using just a flat camera today which is unusual I can see some Harris fencing now now the canal obviously would have ran straight ahead of us here but what you’re going to see in a second is a lot of digging and that is the new football pictures for forest

Green Rovers the training ground the stadiums going across the other side so if you look across there just a bit further over from The Greenery and the guys in the yellow suits there’s West Hill bridge and that is West Hill bridge and lock which is now John Robinson lock

After the guy who left a lot of money in in his will for the trust to build it so here we are on the other side of the M5 uh we’ve only walked from that little hedge line over there you can see the spoil Heats behind on the other side

This is where the canal is going to come back through and then it’s going to follow around these fields here and pretty much follow the course of the river around back up to the lot so let’s jump up to John Robinson now and see what we can see so this is John

Robinson lock formerly Westfield lock now you can see loads of clearance has been done here we’ll get to that in a second why it’s been cleared kind of all that when we started down here a year ago this was all Bramble first day was here clearing that out while this was

All being dug out there was a digger on the side here dumper trucks running right round to take you to the spoil Heap where all the spoil was dumped and then you had eventually as that was dug out on that side managed to get a basically a track into here and dig out

Through here and round so that is the old line of the cloud directly in front of us and if you look further up ahead you may or may not be able to see the the cars and the lores going across through the Gap in the trees that is

That tunnel we walk through that’s the cow tunnel so the football pitches are just there that can no longer be used not just because of the football pitches but because of the height of getting underneath the motor as I described further back so the canal is now going

To go across and turn here you’re going to have a wide area here for turning so you can swing a boat round if you know about steering a boat you steer from the back so it’s quite a swing to get a boat around and then there’s going to be a lock down here

Somewhere and then follows the river around to the river goes under the mo Motorway just over there so that’s new line now there’s problems with all of this originally this was supposed to be all funded mainly by national lottery grants there was something like a 20 million pound fund it’s the biggest fund

Ever in the southwest of England to be given Heritage fund but because of various things covid the Ukraine War uh you know the cost of everything really the materials have all gone up inflation’s gone through the roof it’s now going to cost about another 10

Million I think the total is about 35 5 million for this project uh some was funded from elare obviously so the trusts are now looking at ways to kind of get this price down and one of these options is to get volunteers to dig this rather than having contractors in with

Diggers they want it done in about 5 years they need two things they need they need some money so there will be a link to the cotwell Canal Trust below where you can go and put donations and they need more volunteers so if you live locally or even don’t mind traveling

Down here please do get in touch with the trust and see if you can help out can you imagine how cool it would be I’m a Tradesman right and I regularly drive past houses with friends family my wife the kids in the car and I’d be like I

Work there I did that I work there I work there I work there imagine coming for a walk with your family or hiring a boat living on a boat if you live on a boat and sailing along and saying I dug this you won’t beat that will you how

Cool would that be so get involved and help turn things like this into reality now let’s have a little look down so I don’t really want to say too much about this lock because it’s something I’ve covered a lot but one thing that has happened down here is I done the

Clearance work which was done by another wrg work party recently and I think volunteers have been doing it as well are the coping stains now the coping stains weren’t there last time I was here they were still doing the brick work so this for the first time is

Really starting to look like a lock the wrg groups from KS crg to like the new groups and all over the country people come here they give up weeks they give up weekends they give up loads of Time for free to come and do this actually they pay for the privilege cuz they’ve

Got to pay to come down and stay when they’re down here so a massive thank you to all the hard work by all the volunteers not just the cball Canal Trust volunteers they do an amazing job but for the Nationals as well who cover the whole country so just here is the

Top of the lock and this is in the way so this is a stream this never used to run down here so this used to run into the canal a bit further up and there’s a spill here visit in a minute which is to take it then across the field that way

But there were major issues with flooding so when the canal was abandoned they diverted it around here and Out To The River fre a different way now this was all quite overgrown here and this has been cleared obviously time of the year it has to be done before now

Because of the nest and Seasons so now the locker is going to come through here there’s going to be a Culver under here it’s not an aqueduct it’s a Culver thanks R Williamson for pointing that out for me that is then going to take the canal over this stream and on

Towards dock loock up there and this has also been cleared massively as well down here so you couldn’t see any of this before this is well overgrown I came with Paul whitewick and Rebecca and they did a video on this Spillway here which is very good we were trying to figure it

Out cuz it’s got three different heights on it and uh we never really did figure out what it was I think it’s less complicated than what you think it is but it’s a beautiful structure and that takes the canal up into to what was the old company

Headquarters and dock loock up ahead so this is dock loock this has had a lot of work done in the past but I have never seen this staircase before up on the side of the lock there so this has had quite a bit done since I was here last

All of this was really overgrown before so there been loads of clearance work done excellent work by the volunteers unfortunately I can cover this little section in between but I will jump over to show you the end of the missing Mile in a second but they’re currently

Catching Vols at the top uh they need to remove the Vols to be able to do the work forever up now it’s quite a good problem to have with Vols because obviously vs are something that being reintroduced and disappeared largely from this country so to to have them

Here and be able to trap them and remove them and and put them to a safe place is excellent so this gets its name from the fact that it used to have a dry dock here I’ve never really sort of got a confirmation of where it was some

Literature says it was actually down here and it was underneath the lock which doesn’t make sense because you’ve then got pumped the water out but there is a cut out at the top there I think there used to be an ice breaker up here and I believe there was a dry dock at

The top there I think that’s where it was anyway so one thing you may have noticed when I was putting Maps up West Hill bridge that we’ve just been to was the toe path stays on this side of the canal normally when you find a bridge

It’s cuz the toe path crosses and that’d be some reason for the original Lando didn’t want you to go for his land or whatever and then it doesn’t actually cross until we get to dock loock which we get to very shortly now there’s several reasons that that could be one

Is the obvious answer that there’s Farms with land across each side so they need to be a to get tractors and stuff across and it is quite a substantial bridge but one story I did hear that it was built so the people who lived in whitminster just over there could access this church

Over here I love the church I love any building actually in fact a lot of the mosques synagog everything if you look at them they are absolutely beautiful buildings I love history and I love engineer and I love architecture and what a church this is it’s lovely I’m

Just going to see if we can actually go most churches are open most of the time so yep very nice look at it we don’t build things like this anymore there’s very few people’s Stow Masons that are actually doing this on new projects it’s absolutely beautiful

So we’re on Pike bridge now and we’ve got the Western Depot just behind us here and this is where they’re laying the traps and I believe that is one just floating in the water there so they leave these down for a day or two I think they’ll be coming back uh and they

Trap the Vols in there and and then move them up so this is Pike lock this was uh finished last year up until about I think it’s about around September October time this was full of scaffold so they’ve done all the W repairs cop and stones uh got it all ready for the

Gates to go in which are currently alender you can see where all the brick work repairs were and it looks like that’s quite been quite expensively repaired but it’s just ready for Gates that’s what it’s needed on here two gates top and bottom they’re not cheap

On this canal cuz they’re so big this is uh used to carry seago vessels so it wasn’t just a case of a Naru gate it was uh you know I think like 15t wide these locks so they’ve just got stock planks in there and that’s obviously overflowing now as well as

Down through here we’ve had a lot of rain so it be running harder than usual a little slipway here as well and then you’ve got this whole barge I believe this was the first of the mud boats that the cwall canals had I’m not sure whether it’s been put up here as a

Permanent sort of statue to all the work that it did or whether it’s one day going to be repaired so that is the update on the planning application that’s gone in and the fact that it’s now all going ahead like I said they need a bit more money so please do have

A look make a donation give some time whatever you can afford or do and uh thank you very much for watching have a great [Applause] [Applause] day