Ribble Link - Construction

Construction

Ground clearance began in February and March 2001, with the intention of constructing the lower end of the navigation first, but the outbreak of Foot-and-mouth disease in May 2001 resulted in all of the surrounding agricultural land being closed for access, and there was no option but to start at the top. Work began on lock 5 first, followed by lock 4. Both were built on dry ground between the sides of a meander. The design involved driving four rows of interlocking steel piles into the ground, using a vibrating pile driver to minimise the noise nuisance which is normally associated with hammer action pile driving. The inner two rows would form the lock walls, while the outer two were tied to them by steel tie rods to provide anchorage. Earth was then excavated from between the inner pair to form the lock chamber. Construction of the staircase began soon afterwards, which was the first staircase ever built by machine, and getting the profile of the piles correct required new skills which were developed on the project. The Foot-and-mouth restrictions were lifted in July 2001, and work on the lower section could start.

In August 2001, there was some concern about a number of tight bends, and trials with a 70-foot (21 m) measuring rod resulted in some of them having to be re-aligned. The navigation had been designed with massive weirs near all the locks, to cope with a 1 in 50 year flood level, but before they were constructed, prolonged heavy rain in late August resulted in extensive flooding, causing significant damage to the newly-built banks, which were washed into the channel. A second flood occurred in mid-September, and a third on 8 October, all of which resulted in work having to be re-done. Lock 6 was the only lock which had to be built on the line of the Brook, and so the water had to be diverted around the site in pipes while the initial piling was completed.

The lock gates were built at the Northwich works of British Waterways, and the first pair to be fitted were the upper gates of lock 5, in late October 2001. By the end of the year, the intermediate gates of the staircase had been fitted, as had those on lock 4, and work on a coffer dam around the site of the tidal gate had been started. In January, work started on the construction of an elevated pedestrian walkway through the railway bridge below the staircase, but on 28 January, much of the lower end of the site was flooded by an exceptional high tide, although little damage was caused. Access to the golf club required a new bridge to be installed, and a tube consisting of pre-shaped corrugated steel panels was built on the bank and then lowered by crane into the channel.

The technique had first been used at Moderna on the Rochdale Canal, although in this case the panels were made in Italy, as no British mills could produce such radiused panels.

The bridge to carry the Lancaster Canal towpath over the connection basin entrance at the top of the canal arrived on site from Holland on 26 March, but the delivery lorry could not get close enough to the site, and so it was not fitted until 3 April. Further flooding of the lower section occurred on 29 April as a result of heavy rain and a high spring tide, again resulting in significant damage to the works.

June 2002 saw the coffer dam removed from around the rotating sector gate, and also saw the first vessel on the waterway, when a British Waterways maintenance boat passed from the Lancaster Canal into the connection basin above the staircase locks. A number of boats traversed the navigation in July 2002, in order to assist with the commissioning of the locks and the methods of working. The boats were all owned by members of the Ribble Link Trust, who made their way from Preston Docks to the Lancaster Canal. Problems with the hydraulic swing bridge at the exit from the docks resulted in the boats leaving two hours later than expected, but a very high tide ensured that all the boats managed to pass through the sector gate before water levels dropped. The official opening took place on 20 September 2002, when the Rt. Hon. Margaret Beckett, who was at the time Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, declared the navigation open.

The Ribble Link was closed during 2006 with British Waterways citing that the appearance of voids meant that the last section was too dangerous to operate for both their own staff and boaters. After dredging and infilling behind lock chambers during the winter of 2006-7, the link was re-opened on 6 April 2007.