Information Boards
We have now raised the full £20,000 for the Information Boards – so firstly thank you for the donations that you have made.
Next step is that we are working with BCA to install approximately 15 new Information Boards along the navigable length of the canal. and we are in dialogue with the BCA preferred sign supplier for the design, production and installation of the boards.
The boards will follow the BCA prescribed design guidance and will be ‘lectern’ style and A1 in size. The final template layout for the boards hasn’t been finalised but the intention is to commence installation later this spring with all boards in place during this calendar year. Generally the subject matter of the boards will be relevant to its location. The locations agreed with BCA are :
Broad Oak Bridge
Crookham Wharf car Park
Ealmoor Bridge
Claycart Bridge
Inglis Pyramid Bridge
Queens Avenue Bridge
Ash Lock Cottage
Ash Wharf
Great Bottom Flash
Frimley Lodge Park
Lock 22
Lock 15, Pirbright Road Bridge
Langsman Bridge
Horsell Common, Monument Road Bridge
Moorings at Lock 1
Holland Moorings, Farnborough
The weekend working party have almost finished the Holland Moorings which will provide moorings for extra boats with the income going to the BCA.
Work on the moorings has taken some time as pile driving is possible in the summer months because of environmental concerns and we then had Covid 19. However, after the first lockdown the team continued with fixing the woodwork and laying the green fibre grid (see photo).
Then from October pile driving restarted and during the recent lockdown in 2021 the team were allowed to continue to work as a very restricted team, and classified by the BCA as a construction project and hence continued to work on their normal alternative weekends.
This work party was restricted in size with only 6 people who worked in two groups of three. One group was installing the large mooring poles and the other was erecting the actual access ramps.
By the end of February all the actual mooring and the three access ramps were completed. The next phase is the actual landscaping and laying roadstone up to the two accessible ramps.
On the first weekend of March the team leveled the pathway along the side of the mooring and linked this with a wheelchair accessible ramp and path down beside the slipway. The party alsostarted work on scraped the carpark clean and laid roadstone on that – in total 40 tons of stone was used over the weekend.
What is left is the finishing of the carpark resurfacing and then contouring the surrounding areas and seeding it. It will be a job well done – Now we just need a few boats moored there!