This fourth instalment is three months on from the previous. Perhaps the biggest news so far is the Bridgewater company has given what seems a possibly optimistic date for re-opening the canal. On the 17th April their Facebook page announced a date of December 2026. Its quite optimistic given the scale of the breach, especially when smaller breaches have taken the best part of two years to fix. December 2025 is twenty months away and not even two years!
The Bridgewater canal announcement 17th April 2025. Facebook.
Its very optimistic given that this is the biggest breach on the waterway system possibly since that on the Manchester Bolton and Bury canal in 1935 – and there’s no way a breach that’s probably four times the size of any of the more recent ones can be rebuilt in less time proportionally. Middlewich took nine months from breach to the canal reopening – however that work also involved volunteers too so there was a greater effort.
The dramatic canal breach of 1935 at Little Lever just above Prestolee locks. Bolton News.
Personally the Bolin breach will require far more work because reusing any part of the damaged embankment simply wont work – the whole lot must be rebuilt from the Boiln aqueduct to the Bollington underbridge (aka Park lane aqueduct.) In terms of achieving such an objective as early as December 2026, its quite possible the canal will be encased in a concrete trough and an embankment will be progressively built around this – sort of like a ‘H’ section. That is because given the time scale, a pure embankment with a lining will be far more of a long shot in terms of having to settle properly first before the channel can be established – not forgetting the need to ensure the new structure has full integrity before it can carry any water. If they start pretty soon, say by this summer, its likely to be possible. Time will tell.
As for breaches, they keep coming! The north west isn’t doing too well in terms of canals at the moment and that is because the other much needed route from Manchester to the south has now been compromised. This occured in late March in the form of a breach on the Macclesfield canal.
The breach on the Macclesfield canal at Bosley. The site where the breach occurred can be seen at bottom. The top of the twelve locks at Bosley can just about be seen at the top of the picture. This is a combination of two screencapped aerials I merged (the one single view was a bit tight in terms of showing both locations) from Youtube.
The Macclesfield breach was just above the top of Bosley locks – the canal’s only other locks besides the stop lock at Hall Green. Along with the Bolin incident, the Bosley breach means the whole of the waterways around Manchester have been cobbled and the only routes available are either the Rochdale or Huddersfield Narrow. CRT says it should be the end of June before the Macclesfield breach is repaired. Even so that digs into the earlier part of the busy summer period for canal boat hire.
When the Bridgewater occurred there evidently was going to be no Cheshire ring for sometime, but with Bosley there isn’t even half a Cheshire ring now! There’s no doubt there’s a huge Bosley Cloud currently hanging over the canals in this part of the world! The only alternative ATM is to use the Manchester ship canal to Ellesmere Port in order to gain access to the rest of the area’s canal system. There may be pressure on the Trent and Mersey, Shroppie and Llangollen canals in terms of boat hire traffic because the Cheshire ring was a very popular choice – hopefully the Bosley breach gets taken off CRT’s stoppage list quickly!
Lymm Heritage Centre has opened an exhibition covering the Bridgewater canal breaches – the 1972 and the 2025. Here’s another report on that exhibition. Breach! The new exhibition Lymm Heritage Centre never wanted to have.