IWA has supported the Grantham Canal for many years.  IWA

• is a member of the Grantham Canal Partnership
• arranges insurance cover for the Grantham Canal Society’s requirements
• has run canal camps and large scale vegetation clearance weekends.  

National Lottery Heritage Fund Project

In the case of the Grantham Canal, the Hub has actively supported the Society’s successful National Lottery Heritage Fund Project to undertake the restoration of Locks 14 and 15 as well as providing extensive training and upskilling of volunteers. The project ran from 2015-2020 although there are a few elements still outstanding due to Covid19 delays.  

The Restoration Hub has supported many elements of the project;

• Mike Palmer, WRG’s chairman, was a member of GCHI Project Team and the engineering sub-team offering advice on volunteering support and technical queries.
• Our skilled Forestry Team undertook several weekends clearing vegetation and large trees from locks 14 and 15.
• For several years WRG’s Canal Camp programme focused a circuit on the lock restoration.
• In 2014 WRG built the site compound for the project
• In 2016 alone WRG volunteers contributed £100,000 volunteer hours in match funding. Lock 15 was completed in 2018. 

Lock 14

• WRG ran 8 weeks of Canal Camps helping restoration work at Lock 14 installing a bywash pipe, demolition damaged brickwork and helping the Society with rebuilding work.

The restoration of the lock is now largely finished with only a small amount of landscaping jobs to be completed and the lock gates to be installed.

Locks 12 & 13 of the Woolsthorpe Flight

Our Technical Officer is now working closely with the Grantham Canal Society to build their volunteer training matrix and induction plan so they can move onto restoring locks 12 and 13 of the Woolsthorpe Flight. The Hub has also been supporting the Society’s work on building a slipway at Woolsthorpe Depot through reviewing drawings and method statements.