00:00I'm Alistair Dalton, the Scotsman's Transport Correspondent. I'm in Falkirk today on the oldest
00:05remaining section of the Scottish Canal network. Scottish Canals, which own the waterways, is about
00:12to start major work which will close this part of the canal between the Kelpies and the Falkirk wheel
00:20until early 2026. The problem facing Scottish Canals is that when the Forth and Clyde and Union
00:28canals were reopened 25 years ago after decades of dereliction, many new lock gates were put in
00:36which are now reaching the end of their life. They all need to be replaced or to be repaired
00:43and Scottish Canals want to reduce the impact of the disruption by doing it in one phase over 18
00:50months. So I'm Richard Miller and I'm Chief Operating Officer at Scottish Canals. So today
00:57we're on what we would call the Falkirk Flight. We are between the Kelpies and the Falkirk wheel.
01:02We're doing some major works between Lock 3 and Lock 16 here at the Falkirk Flight. These works
01:08we're looking at replacing and refurbishing a whole lot of the lock gates that were put in
01:1425 years ago as part of the Millennium Link project. The Millennium Link was a really important
01:20project, year 2000-2002, and what the Millennium Link was to do was to reopen the lowland canals
01:29of Scotland. The canals were started in 1768 and they were completed with the Union Canal in 1822.
01:38However, as the railways came along they fell into decline in the 20th century and by the 1960s
01:46motorways were the thing of the day. So the canals were closed at that point in lowlands and
01:51that's the Forth and Clyde and the Union Canal and the Millennium Link project was about reopening
01:56these, removing 36 major obstructions including things like the whole of Westerhales had been
02:03built on the canal. So we had to dig right through Westerhales, we had to lift motorways, we had to
02:08remove utility infrastructure and we had to build new locks at that time as well. A thousand people
02:14were working on that project, 83.5 million pound invested, the Falkirk Wheel built and the
02:20canal was brought back to life. The challenge that we now face is that massive investment 25 years ago
02:27is now coming back and requiring certain parts of it are needing investment and that's what we're
02:33doing at the moment. We saw that last year where we did a massive upgrade at the Falkirk Wheel,
02:382.7 million on improving the control systems at the Falkirk Wheel and now we're working on the
02:44lock gates. We've got a lock gate strategy across Scotland taking care of the Caledonian, the Crinnan
02:50and the lowland canals and this winter and into next year we are going to be doing significant
02:57works here on the Falkirk flight. So the challenge is around about how do we invest our
03:01money and we're challenged with making the best investments for government and what we want
03:07to do here is make it as efficient as possible. So there are a number of gates here that need to be
03:14improved and repaired so what we've done is taken quite a hard decision because this is between
03:19the Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies, have an extended closure here. Normally we would do it
03:25over the winter time, it's just an extension of that into next summer. We will then be working
03:30to manage the water to keep areas of the canal in water and available but not available to boats
03:37over that period and we'll work our way down. We will be refurbishing the gates and in some cases
03:43we'll be replacing the gates with new infrastructure. The Forth and Clyde Canal was the first
03:49major sea-to-sea, fully man-made sea-to-sea navigation and actually it's an incredible
03:55piece of engineering but being the first it's kind of basic and at the top we put water in,
04:03it cascades all the way down these lock flights and what we want to do is be able to manage that
04:08water. So in a number of locations we'll be putting in what's known as a bypass which allows the water
04:13to flow around the lock rather than over the lock gates. What that does is bring us benefits because
04:19it will allow the gates to last longer, it's not having all of that water constantly cascading over
04:24it and it allows us much better to manage the water and utilise these canals for climate
04:31resilience. The Smart Canal is a great example of us developing and using this heritage infrastructure
04:38for the future. It allows us just to drop the canal by four inches and that allows us to take
04:44surface water from 3,000 new homes in Glasgow. These developments of bypasses throughout the
04:50system will allow us to extend that benefit to other areas and to prepare for the climate change
04:57that we are already beginning to see. So we have really talented engineers, we have a consistent
05:03programme of investment onto the canals every year but one of our challenges is an ageing workforce
05:10and a lot of our skills, they were here 25 years ago putting these gates in, they know exactly how
05:16to set a gate and how to set it upright so that it works and it holds the water perfectly.
05:22What I want to do through these works is to pass that skill on to a new generation.
05:27So we'll be working with young people, we're bringing in apprentices and we'll be working
05:32with our workforce to make sure the skills of those that were here and did all of those
05:37works in the past are passed on for future generations so that we can keep doing this
05:42for the next 250 years. So across the network we're constantly managing the condition of the
05:49canal. Canals were built 200 to 250 years ago, I don't think anyone that built them ever expected
05:55them to still be here 250 years later. So our challenge is very much making sure that the
06:01investment that we have, we invest wisely and we will need to do works on the west, there is no
06:07doubt about it. We put 30, I think it was 32 sets of gates were put in as part of the Millennium Link
06:13project, all of those are starting to reach the end of their design life. So over the next 10 years
06:20we've got a lock gate strategy that helps us to understand the condition of those gates,
06:25helps us to invest appropriately and we'll need to manage this moving forward and we will be trying
06:32to work in the winter time doing that so that we've got the summer season here for boating
06:37but there may be times again when we need an extended period to make these works as efficient
06:42as possible and to deliver the beautiful canal that you see here today for the people of Scotland.
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