Pennine Waterways News

Thursday 5 April 2012

New Stretch of canal opens in Huddersfield

A new stretch of canal opened in Huddersfield this week. This is the section of canal running through the former Sellers Engineering site, now being developed as the "Huddersfield Waterfront".

When the canal was restored 12 years ago the work involved re-locating Lock 3e to the western end of the site to allow the canal to pass through a cut-and-cover tunnel below the site. Despite a lot of money being spend on new buildings for Sellers when the canal tunnel was constructed, Sellers have now relocated onto a site on the outskirts of the town.

The area is being developed as the "Huddersfield Waterfront" scheme which will include a new campus for Kirklees College as well as housing and offices. As part of the scheme, the tunnel was opened up and the canal bed raised, bringing the canal back to the surface, although still confined to the narrow channel that the tunnel had occupied.

The canal now passes straight through what had been the new Lock 3e (see photo). An even newer Lock 3e has now been constructed near the eastern end of the site, not far from the first incarnation of this lock. A short section of wider canal has been built above the lock, where boats passing through the lock can moor and be passed by boats going in the opposite direction. The work has also involved the creation of a vehicle bridge and a footbridge across the canal.

A small opening ceremony was carried out at the end of March, when the Calder Navigation Society's boat Savile was used for the ribbon-cutting event.

Unfortunately, I am not able to share any photos of this event with you as no invitation to attend was received, internet users presumably coming low on the priority list. I was also unable to bring you photos of the construction work as the company running the site did not reply to emails and failed to return phone calls. Although a press report says that the new towpath will be open in April it is not yet open, so the nearest I could get was above the former Lock 3e. You can see from the photo below that the canal now continues straight through the lock chamber and disappears out of sight around the curve.

I will bring you photos of this new section of canal at some point in the future when the towpath eventually opens.


The canal now passes straight through what had been Lock 3e.

2 comments:

  1. Really anoying on the no invite - agreed. I had a similar experience on the Prince's recent visit to the Droitwich recently, very much hush-hush and closed shop. And have been a member of DCT since adam was a lad !

    ReplyDelete
  2. great photo and good to see the canal as it use to be all we need now is for bates to move sites so the other bit can be opened up

    ReplyDelete

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