Our enhancement group, based at Ellesmere and now in its third year, racked up over 300 hours of volunteer effort on the Llangollen Canal during 2025. A wide variety of light maintenance and improvement activities were undertaken, both on and off the water on the length between Frankton Junction and Bridge 55. Not bad for six hours or so of effort on one Saturday a month!
Activity in the early months of the year was close to our base in the historic Ellesmere Yard. Vegetation was cleared around the 350 or so trees which we had planted in the margins of the fields adjacent to the yard a couple of years ago. These will eventually act as a visual barrier and nature habitat. The hedges and stiles in the fields also received attention.
The other major task in the spring was a clean-up of the Ellesmere Arm towpath which is one of the canal’s main local features. In April 2024, we were successful in our application to the Tesco Stronger Starts Scheme for funding. This enabled us to buy, amongst other things, hand tools for our volunteers. To mark the end of the funding period, we were joined on towpath by Ella Hammond, the manager of the Tesco store which appropriately is located at the bottom of the Arm, who saw the tools being put to good use.
The main summer task during 2024 was clearance of vegetation on the offside of the canal. So, to try to balance the needs of boaters and walkers, much of the effort during the summer just gone was work on the towpath side of the channel. In many places the towpath, even in the central Ellesmere area, was so overgrown that walking it was a real challenge. As anyone who has cut the hedge at home will testify, cutting the growth is one problem, but getting rid of the resulting brash is quiet another! The amount of brash from the towpath clearance work was enormous and so a borrowed CRT workboat, steered by our volunteers, was once more called into action to shift it. Also during the summer, half a dozen volunteers were trained and assessed in the use of powered hedge cutters. Use of these greatly speeded up the work. By the end of the summer, about two kilometres of towpath from Ellesmere in the Frankton direction had been cleared. It is heartening that nearly every passing walker thanks us for our work.
The good weather in June, July and August was ideal for work to renovate the benches and picnic tables along the length from Ellesmere toward Frankton. These items were of course originally installed by the society twenty-odd years ago and all benefited from cleaning and several coats of paint.
The other thing to report is that we now have a base within Ellesmere Yard to store our tools. Our thanks to Canal & River Trust for this and the loan of the workboat.