Pocklington Canal gets welcome financial award

THE Pocklington Canal Amenity Society has received a welcome £100,000 boost towards its restoration.

The Sandhill Lock Restoration Appeal was awarded £100,000 from the East Yorkshire Council’s Commuted Sums Fund and brings the total raised for the project to £200,000, Alan Tilbury reports.

Severely dilapidated

The restoration of Sandhill Lock is a major operation owing to the severely dilapidated condition but plans are in hand to start the work in the near future, with the society's Chairman Paul Waddington enthusing:

“We are absolutely thrilled at this news after the struggles and difficulties of the past year, and being unable to raise funds, this comes as such welcome relief.

“We can now get on and plan the repairs in the knowledge that there will be enough funding to completely restore a historic listed structure that has been unused since the turn of the 20th Century.

“Our volunteer workforce is eager to begin work as soon as is possible."

The Pocklington Canal in a 9.5 miles navigation between the Derwent at East Cottingham and near to Pocklington with nine locks, with half of the waterway now navigable.