CanalCuttings - Your FREE online-world British Inland Waterways, Narrowboat, River Cruiser, Canal Boat Magazine, Info Source and Britain's & Narrowboat Holiday Guide.

Over 450 Pages of Information and Features about canals and their usage - We're not just a Narrowboat Magazine. The website includes River and Inland Waterways information.

Watermead Country Park - Bywater Bridge Arrives in Style

Cycle and pedestrian access from the Grand Union Canal to this Nature reserve with bird hides by reedbeds. Lakes and woodland walks.

The bridge will be lifted into place on Monday 14th December 2009 at 10.30.

A new pedestrian and cycle bridge designed to boost access to Watermead Country Park is being lifted into place next week.

The structure, known as the Backwater or Bywater Bridge, adds to the new bridge at Thurmaston Lock, built in July 2009. It crosses the River Soar close to the lock, off Mill Lane, Thurmaston.

Due to the size and shape of the bridge - it is 13.6m long and weighs 4.5 tonnes - it is being delivered on a flatbed lorry which has its own crane to lift it into place and is specifically designed to carry and lift heavy loads.

Ernie White, County Council Cabinet Member for Country Parks, said: “The park is popular with visitors from all over the city and county. We want to make sure that the changes over the next five years will greatly improve accessibility into and around the park for all of these people.”

The £25,000 bridge, funded by Sustrans and British Waterways, complements the £1.4 million Lottery-funded Sustrans Connect2 Watermead Country Park project. In December 2007, people across the nation voted Connect2 the winner of a £50 million Big Lottery Fund People’s Millions grant. The initiative is creating new cycling and walking routes, improving local travel in 79 communities throughout the UK over the next five years.

To keep up to date with improvements in Watermead Country Park, visit www.Leics.gov.uk/Connect2.