Scotland's waterways seeing revival
Scotland recently began investing heavily in its canal system with the introduction of the Millennium Link, a project to restore the Union Canal and Forth and Clyde Canals for use by recreational boaters, tourists and to encourage investment in the tourism, retail and commercial sectors.
The Forth and Clyde Canal was built between 1768 and 1790 and was a monumental undertaking to construct a navigable link for ocean going vessels between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. The canal is 35 miles long and starts at its eastern end by the River Forth and ends at its western end in the city center of Glasgow.
Several decades after the completion of this canal, another major waterway was built, the Union Canal, which connected Edinburgh and Glasgow via Falkirk, where the two canals meet. It took just four years to build between 1818 and 1822 and was joined to the Forth and Clyde Canal by a lock, a series of other locks were located along the length of the canal to provide navigation to boats through the elevation of the ground along its 31 mile length.
The canal was closed in 1930 due to competition from steam engines, but was re-opened in 1990 following a major renovations and restoration project that saw may historical features, such as the Leamington lift bridge, restored, while new innovations were applied to modernize the antiquated system of locks.
In the 20th century, 11 locks were used by boats to get from the Forth and Clyde Canal to the Union Canal, this was both time consuming and expensive in terms of maintenance and the locks were ultimately filled in and built over when the Union Canal was closed. The cost of building new locks was both prohibitive and counter-productive, so the Falkirk Wheel was built.
It is a giant rotating boat lift that provides easier transfer between the canals by rotating and dropping one boat down while simultaneously lifting another. The boat lift cost around £17 million to build, making up a large part of the £85 million spent on the restoration project as a whole.
The restoration of the canals of central Scotland was a collaboration between British Waterways, the Scottish Enterprise Network, the European Regional Development Fund and the Millennium Commission as well as seven local authorities along the length of the two canals.
The project was indeed immense, but the second part of the Millennium Link is even more ambitious and will be one of the biggest projects ever untaken by British Waterways as well as one of the greatest community development programs ever conducted in the UK. It is intended to connect the Union Canal with the ocean by expanding it and will similarly expand the Forth and Clyde Canal to the River Carron, from which access to the sea will be available.
The use a new boatlift in the shape of kelpies, the mythical sea horses that are said to haunt the country’s locks, will be the central landmark of the expanded canals while 300 hectares of unused land will be developed for what promotional material released to Scotland news media call “urban green space”.
This urban space will include a vast Central Park and lagoon between Falkirk and Grangemouth and retail and commercial spaces to provide both employment and a greater range of leisure and entertainment options for local communities and visitors to the area. There will also be cycle paths through rehabilitated natural surroundings and picturesque woodlands.
It is intended that the new expanded canals will enhance the tourism and boating markets on the coast. The project has been in planning stages since it was first announced to Scotland news media in 2006, but is expected to be completed within the next six years. Its funding and implementation is being made possible through a partnership between Falkirk Council, British Waterways Scotland and Central Scotland Forest Trust through the Helix Trust.
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Scotland Feature
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Scotland's waterways seeing revival
Scotland’s waterways, the canals used to transport bulky goods and vast quantities of coal in the days before the development of the railways, are of great significance in terms of their role in the development of the country, new projects are making sure they remain so.
Scotland recently began investing heavily in its canal system with the introduction of the Millennium Link, a project to restore the Union Canal and Forth and Clyde Canals for use by recreational boaters, tourists and to encourage investment in the tourism, retail and commercial sectors. Read more
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