Crinan Canal will reopen on April 30

The Crinan Canal should be back open to boat traffic on Tuesday April 30, according to Scottish Canals.

This follows six months of work on replacing the sea lock gates at lock 15, including electrical actuators, and repairing a leak at the Crinan dummy lock.

As of the beginning of April, the replacement of the lock gates was almost complete with most of the mechanical and electrical parts installed.

The last of the electrical and mechanical works are continuing, to allow the final commissioning of the new gates and operating equipment.

Contractors, of which Mackenzie Construction is the principal for the whole programme of works, are also repointing the back wall in the Crinan Basin, below the car park, while the canal is empty at this section and the basin wall is accessible.

There is also a team working at locks 12 and 13 at Dunardy, installing the stone quadrants that are used in operation with the balance beams and they are expected to be on site until near the end of April.

A phased programme of works to repair a leak at the

Crinan dummy lock, which was the original sea lock until the 1930s, required regulatory consent from Historic Environment Scotland.

The dummy lock was the original Crinan Canal sea lock when the canal opened in 1801.

By the 1930s, the sea lock required significant, costly, repairs and it was decided to build a new sea lock.

The benefit of this was to allow the canal to be accessed during a wider window of tide times.

The new sea lock was built to accommodate larger vessels, and during the work Crinan Basin was also extended to act as a harbour for these vessels.

The old sea lock then became a “dummy” lock, with the downstream gates used to form a permanent shutter for a concrete-capped infill to seal the lock.

The first phase of works this winter involved driving sheet piling down into the base of the lock chamber, which will be backfilled with concrete, on the upstream side of the old dummy lock gates.

The temporary repair carried out in the dummy lock last summer was fully removed, and the dummy lock walls have been cleaned in preparation for the new works.

Once all the electrical and mechanical installation is complete, the gates will be commissioned and when the works programme is complete, contractors will remain on site for a few weeks taking down the works compound, carry out some landscaping works, reinstate paths, and continuing to upgrading the mooring bollards.

Contractors are currently carrying out essential work to renew power bollards on the canal, including at Crinan Basin and Bellanoch Marina.

At Bellanoch Marina, the contractor has had to lift up sections of the pontoon decking to gain access to replace cabling, and the power supply to the bollards remains isolated.

Unfortunately, this means that there is currently no access to the pontoons, and shore power is unavailable.

The Crinan Basin car park and the layby alongside the Crinan Basin will remain closed until the end of the works’ programme at the end of the month.