Pond to be created by side of the Montgomery Canal

A PROJECT is afoot to build an offline pond by the Montgomery Canal should Powys Councillors agree plans for the pond near  Welshpool.

The application was lodged by the Canal & River Trust with county planners back in October last year, Janet Friend reports.

Connection to the canal

Building the pond will include a connection the the canal if completed, with a spokesman from the trust stating:

“The new pond provides aquatic habitat adjacent but separate from the canal and is one of a number (of ponds) which are proposed to be created as part of the restoration project.

“The creation of the ponds is to provide additional habitat principally to accommodate ‘Luronium Natans’ a protected species of aquatic plant which is present in the canal itself and the reason for its length in Wales being designated a Special Area of Conservation.

Welshpool Town Council had considered the application at a meeting in January but told it would not support it until more information came from the trust on what they intend to do to 'deter' visitors from the site.

Its planning committee has now given unanimous approval for the council’s own application to redirect two watercourses on the site to create an attenuation pond to hold water and release it at a controlled level through an existing culvert that will eventually feed into the Afon Llwyd and the Usk. But councillor Steve Evans is worried, telling:

Seriously worried

“I’m seriously worried that a young child or an animal could end up in that water if there’s nothing there to prevent them going in.”

But it is told that fencing wasn’t desired with the steep banking also intended to discourage people from entering the water.