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Volunteers Help Chesterfield Canal Restoration

A group of volunteers has been building a wall in Staveley this week. They are members of the Waterway Recovery Group. They have given up a week of their holidays to help the Chesterfield Canal Trust’s regular Work Party in the restoration of the Chesterfield Canal.

Five miles of the canal has already been restored from Chesterfield to Mill Green at Staveley. Construction work on the new Staveley Town Basin is about to begin. The wall will be one side of the length of canal which will join these two sections together.

The Waterway Recovery Group has been going for forty years. Its volunteers have been involved in canal restoration throughout the country. They give up their spare time to bring derelict stretches of canal back to life, indeed they even pay for the privilege of going on work camps.

The Chesterfield Canal Trust is campaigning for the complete restoration of the Chesterfield Canal, which runs for 46 miles from the River Trent into the heart of Chesterfield. The first 26 miles to Worksop have always been in use. Eleven of the remaining twenty miles have already been restored. There are detailed plans and studies for how to close the nine mile gap between Staveley and Kiveton Park.

Robin Stonebridge, the Chair of the Trust, said “We are determined to complete the restoration of our beautiful canal and we are extremely grateful to the Waterway Recovery Group volunteers for the magnificent work that they are doing to help us.”