Possibility of Stratford to Grand Union link

IT WAS some 30 years ago that the Avon Navigation Trust proposed plans to extend the navigational Avon from Stratford to link up with the Grand Union Canal and now there is a further proposal.

Stratford District Council recently announced it would be considering plans to open up the Avon between Stratford and Leamington Spa as a navigation to boats that it believes would help tourism, Roger Fox tells us.

Raising the level of the river

The Avon is already navigable for shallow craft for just over two miles up to Alveston Weir, but the plans include raising the level of the river to take deeper draughted boats, connecting with the Leam and then extending to the Grand Union Canal at Leamington Spa.

However there would be a loser in the shape of the working Charelcote Mill in Hampton Lucy that an increase in water level would put out of action. This 19th century mill is one of the very few traditional working mills in the country.

But the council is in contact with the miller, Karl Grevatt, who operates the mill and which as been in his family for generations, in the hope of finding a solution.