Is work finally commencing on the long task of repairing the Bridgewater canal breach that occurred nearly a year ago? Peel Holdings have turned up and it seems they are starting some work next week. Its basically to sort the temporary dams by putting in earth dams (bunding) instead. It doesn’t necessarily mean the main work will start next week. It’ll probably be after Christmas at the rate things are going. But what is happening now is no doubt preliminary work that needs to be done in advance of the main task. There’s also the legal stuff to sort (eg farmers, landowners, land access and possibly compensation etc).

One main item of interest is it seems the canal will be put back exactly how it was before. There wont be stone walls lining the edges of the channel as had been the canal’s previous state – but rather steel piling and concrete edging, you know, that sort of thing and often a quick and easy way of sorting out a canal breach. Its not a comprehensive design anyway as things have not been finalised – perhaps the engineers are still debating the final scheme – but it does appear to be what is being envisaged at the moment – and that would tie in with the work done to rebuild the adjacent section where the 1970s breach occurred.

Not only that, some of the work to be done will also require a partial rebuild of the 1970s breach section because a good length of saw its piling collapsed entirely as a result of the New Year’s day 2025 breach. That’s probably around 50 metres or so and it will make a likely total of 275 metres of canal that needs to be rebuilt between Bollington Lane and Woodhouse Lane underbridges/aqueducts.

In terms of completion Peel had asserted in their 2025 Bridgewater statement that the work would be finished by December 2026. That’s a date that seems quite tenacious at the moment. But they may well pull it off if good progress is made and even possibly that the ground conditions do not prove to be worse than expected.

The following is basically what has been said about the canal repair works. It has been edited from the transcript of the video to remove extraneous stuff and focus on the more crucial detail of the work that seems likely to be done. This conversation can be seen/viewed on Explore with Ant’s most recent Youtube video.

They’re all here. Yeah, they’re here. They’re here. That’s me there. And that’s the Peel on this end as well. Oh, you starting work now. Yeah, we are mate. Yeah. Smashing.
You know this towpath… it’s going to get all fenced off, so you won’t be able to come up here anyway. Yeah. Yeah.
So what you doing now? You’re doing it all. Starting it all now? Yeah?

No, mate. We’re putting in like an earth bunding across there so them two porter dams can come out.
Cuz as you can see the leak and when they start the main job next year they need a bit more of a permanent solution in than them.
Oh, they’re not starting the work here yet?

The main breach there? Yeah. So that’ll be next year, mate.
Yeah, it’s just very time consuming. A lot of legal stuff to go through cuz obviously land owners are not happy what’s happened to their land and all that. And they all have the cattle in here the other week.

The cows in the adjacent field one month ago. Youtube.

Yeah, he put them in there and all of a sudden they were in here.
Yeah, I can imagine. So, it’s just a lot of legal stuff and it all takes time, but it will get sorted eventually. Yeah, it will get sorted.
Yeah, it’d be next year. But yeah, this is sort of it’s not going to be done by Christmas this next year, is it?

What they doing? Are they concreting it? Are they just putting it how it was?
Uh, I don’t know yet to be honest. They’ve not finalized the design. I’d imagine they’d probably sheet pile it to be honest. So, they won’t put stone back walls like that. They’ll just put sheets down like there is per where it’s all collapsed in on itself. But yeah, it’ll be a good decent job.
Probably not be finished for next Christmas. It all depends on where they started next year.

See you tomorrow, guys.
They’re getting an earth dam put in ASAP. By the sound of it, it’s this week.

If the so-called indications of what is being done are correct in any way, it seems they’re going for what can be said to be the classic cheap option – steel piling with likely concrete channel tops to form a narrow than previous channel (in the style of the 1970s breach repair) and piling up the new embankment either side. This will no doubt form a new stretch of canal (combined with the 1970s work) from Woodhouse Lane underbridge to Bollington Lane underbridge.

In terms of official news from Peel/Bridgewater Canal, the last was in July 2025. What was divulged then is basically what is now ensuing, which is:

Bridgewater/Peel’s statement in July 2025 on the installation of an earth dam.

An engineered earth dam will be installed to the south side of the breach, near Bollington underbridge. This is currently being designed by external consultant engineers and once installed, will ensure the canal is safe and secure on both sides of the breach. This will allow the temporary Portadams to be removed from this location and the repair works to safely commence in due course. (Bridgewater Canal).

Peel Holding’s contractors at work to the side of Park Lane in Dunham Massey prepping the site for the construction of an earth dam.

One other aspect is it seems the work in the field to the north of Bollington Lane underbridge is to prepare the ground for what is a roadway (basically a temporary wooden raft) which will go from the gateway in that lane to the bottom of the embankment – picture shown above – see Explore with Ant’s video– plus a large working area at the foot of the embankment itself in order to formulate the new dam that will be placed just to the west side of Bollington Lane underbridge. I expect this work will also facilitate access to this end of the canal when the full and proper task of rebuilding does get underway.