Rotted lock closes Watford Flight

Published: Saturday, 13 June 2020

WATFORD Flight on the Grand Union Canal is closed for the foreseeable future.

This means there is neither exit nor access to the Leicester Section through the locks, Keith Gudgin reports.

WatfordCollapse2Maintenance fault

Canal & River Trust state the lock gate is 'badly damaged' but this is just the usual excuse, for as the photograph (by courtesy of CanalWorld Forum) clearly shows, the gate has rotted away through lack of maintenance, as Sam Bennett pointed out to us.

The Trust states this was 'unexpected', but surely those people who work the locks for boaters will have seen the condition of the gate and that it will fail, and there is little doubt it has been reported.

The flight was closed yesterday (Friday) with the Trust stating it is assessing what repair work will be needed.

Very low on resources

And it also states that due to the coronavirus pandemic it is very low on resources and so currently cannot estimate when the repairs will be carried out.