Both of these suggestions were implemented in September with the active participation of 125 students from Marling School. Students carried out 64 face to face structured interviews with local people who were attracted to their information point; placed outside the local supermarket. People interviewed were asked what they wanted from the site, what they felt about it and what improvements they wanted to see. 2000 information flyers were also handed out to local residents.
Other students undertook litter picks on the site and completed questionnaires themselves. Marling School has a history of involvement and interest in the canal restoration and has undertaken voluntary works over a number of years including reed planting on a nearby section of the canal.
At the end of September members of the British Waterways team are speaking and taking part in a seminar organised by the Ruscombe Brook Action Group; the display has another outing at this event before passing to Cainscross Parish Council for wider consultation. Ruscombe Brook runs into, through and out of the subject site into the Canal. The Action Group is a community led initiative looking at ways of cleaning up the Brook before it enters the site. They also want to inspire other environmental improvements in the neighbouring communities which benefit the Brook, for example the installation of grey water toilets in conjunction with the local utility company Severn Trent.
Earlier in the year consultants undertook Neighbourhood and Towpaths Surveys. Results were encouraging with 80% of local people saying that the restoration of the Cotswold Canals was either important or very important to them and 91% saying that they were very or quite interested in the way the waterway develops. Interestingly 80% of respondents had increased their level of physical activity because of the presence of the towpath.
This project is now a regular agenda item on the quarterly Western Consultative Group; comprising all of the parish councils with an interest in the canal restoration west of Sapperton Tunnel.
TG I & II
Design work on the canal section has now been completed up to feasibility stage ready for second stage third party funding applications to match the European funding. Works have included geotechnical, topographic and hydrological analysis and construction concept drawings for the exemplar section of canal. The works are complicated by a number of river and brook flows which have to accommodate 1:100 year flood flows together with an allowance for the impact of climate change.
Drawings and proposals had their first public airing when members of the team welcomed feedback from the public in the Canals Trust Heritage Centre at the heart of the July Saul Festival. The exercise was repeated in September at the Cotswold Canals Trust Annual General Meeting.
