The newly built section of Stroud's canal

We had the Annual Town Meeting last night, where the Town Council invites the public to hear our Annual Report and for us to present the Town Awards to worthy recipients. I was particularly pleased that the Mayor's specific award was presented to the Stroud against the Cuts, the action group who fought and won the fight to stop the local NHS services from being virtually privatised. But as they said when receiving the award, the battle was won, but the war has only just started. I've blipped about this several times before in the last two years.

Today, I gathered my own resources together and went to speak to a leading officer of the District Council in my role as chair of the Lansdown Hall Working Group. We are trying to raise external funds as well as our own community's money to significantly upgrade the Hall to become our 'village hall'. The District Council have adjoining land which is subject to somewhat complex legal covenants, and we have spent two years trying to arrange the formal transfer of land we need for the the works on the Hall to proceed. The officer didn't know I was coming but she did eventually come to meet me, and with her younger colleague, a surveyor they listened to my arguments about getting all the relevant legal agreements to be implemented so we could get on with the job. I have just heard that after our council officer has received a very focused and organised email from the District Council officer suggesting an immediate and agreeable way forward. Yeesssss, we shouted in unison! Thank you Alison and Bryony.

But before I had heard this good news, I went to the Open Day this afternoon, at the canal works near the centre of town, where for two hours, local residents were invited to walk along the completely new concrete cut of the Thames and Severn canal, where it passes under and beyond Capel's Mill Viaduct. The regeneration of this part of the local canal, which is a continuation of the earlier Stroudwater Canal, has been underway for more than two years and will be finished by the end of this year. It won't be complete, but a huge start will have been made, rather like we have done with Lansdown Hall. Now further fund raising is required to link it westwards to the Sharpness canal, under the M5 motorway, and eastwards to Brimscombe Port, Sapperton and then =under the Cotswold hills to meet the Thames again at Lechlade.

The biggest engineering problem was building a wholly new two hundred yards section under the main railway line which crosses the viaduct, as a road bypass was built on the line of the original canal back in the 1980s. Here you can see a view westwards towards the viaduct where the canal turns to run between two old piers. On the right is the remains of the rubbish dump that was created since the old canal closed and on the left there is a large vertical drop down to the River Frome which also goes under the viaduct and where Capel's Mill was originally sited using the power of the river's water, before any canal or railway was ever designed, anywhere.

Between my morning's meeting and this canal visit, I had my repaired wide-angle zoom returned, so I could use it for this picture. (I have now learnt the importance of having reliable insurance cover!) I have added another picture to my Blipfolio , of the reverse view of the canal, from the temporary pedestrian entrance, which might help you understand this scene. There was large turn-out to see the new canal and walk along it before it is finally filled next week. There will be another short open day tomorrow for two hours and that will be it.

A steam train is also traversing this viaduct twice tomorrow which i hope to blip, but I'm not sure where I will film it. I don't think I can get a good view of it here, compared to other places.

I recommend going LARGE to see the rather bemused children playing here, and the workmen still building the fencing above the new concrete bank