Volunteers work to restore canal stretch

Teams of volunteers are helping to bring an abandoned Staffordshire canal back to life.

The aim is to restore the seven-mile Lichfield Canal to a fully navigable through route.

Over the past month partial foundations have been laid for the new canal diversion beside the A38 highway in Lichfield which obliterated the original route some 40 years ago.

The diversion will be via a tunnel underneath the A38.

The long-term project, begun in 1990, aims to return all seven miles between the Ogley Junction at Brownhills and Huddlesford to water by 2026, keeping to the original route where possible. The volunteer-led scheme has been helped in the past month by apprentices from Land Rover Jaguar and members of the Waterway Recovery Group. Work carried out so far – including the construction of boundary walls – has transformed the outlook into a recognisable canal route.

The Lichfield Canal was built between 1794 and 1797 but was drained and filled in in the 1960s.