I passed through Henhurst Lock last week, and with the bottom gates of the lock opened and closed by a windlass operated gear and quadrant, leaves plenty of room between the gates and the road bridge for a plank bridge.
As fitted at many lock tails on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, indeed the base of the old bridge of this sort, removed when the road bridge was widened, is still visible on one side of the lock.
I find it amazing that there is no quick way across the lock. One of only two Marine Accident Investigation Branch reports on canal accidents on the sinking of a boat for disabled people at Gargrave on the Leeds & Liverpool cites delays in dropping paddles when the boat hung up in the lock as a contributory factor to this fatal accident.
I can only imagine that the people who make these decisions (not to replace tail bridges) have never boated through their lengths of canal. Perhaps every CART waterway manager should be required to take a loaded boat of the full design dimensions of their canals round their patch once a year to see for themselves where the problems and dangers to boaters (as opposed to risks to vandals and trespassers) are.
Ray Butler