Dean Davies (our local CRT boss) writes
Good progress has been made at Lock 20, the failed section of wall has been demolished, and the rebuild works all agreed on site. Bricks have been ordered and were collected on Wednesday for immediate rebuild (rather than waiting for delivery, which could go into next week). Whilst we haven’t got an absolute date for opening yet the site manager has suggested for the first time that they could be open mid-August, so I think our last stoppage update was on the right lines
What appears to have happened in the dim and distant past is the face of the lock wall was rebuilt may years ago in a stepped repair. However, the new brickwork doesn’t look like it was tied in to the original at the back of the wall when this repair was carried out. The large volume of water of a few weeks back has gone down between the two and forced the face out. The positive aspect is that we have the good original wall to build up from.
I’ve also included a shot of the large copings that we have had to remove to repair the wall – these weigh over two tonnes in some instances. Once the brickwork has been done these copings will be reinstalled. They’ve been numbered so they all go back in the same place, as have the bull nose copings.