Everything but narrowboats—yet

THE restoration of part of the Thames & Medway Canal is near completion but will be for everything but narrowboats for the present.

Row boats and canoes will be allowed, as will fishing, and Sustrans is busy turning the towpath into a cycle track, with even the nature people getting in a few aquatic creatures, but no narrowboats?

From the Thames

Volunteers of the Thames & Medway Canal Association, have been working since 1976 to restore the waterway that runs from Gravesend on the Thames to Higham.

This month the final part of a section will be completed, with the installation of pumps to feed water into the canal via a weir.

Important month

Chairman Brian Macknish, who founded the association, explained:

"This is a very important month for all involved. It signals the completion of the first major phase which will allow the slipway and docking area we have created to be freely used on a permanent basis.

"It means rowing, canoeing and fishing will return to the area for the first time since the 1950s."

David Davis tells us the obvious reason the restoration cannot take narrowboats is that it has yet to re-link the canal to the Thames, the lock between the original Gravesend canal basin and the tidal Thames being infilled,  with  several hundred yards between the basin and the restored section.