Talk:Camp Hill, Birmingham

Transport section: Paragraphs on canal improvements

The following two italicized paragraphs have been lifted from Grand Union Canal#History. I propose they be deleted from the Camp Hill page as the notes are not sufficiently relevant to the Camp Hill article. The gist of the material is that no works were carried out to the Camp Hill locks only to the canal sections leading up to them which are not in Camp Hill but Sparkbrook. A separate point is that no references for the material have been included on the Camp Hill page.

In 1931 an Act of Parliament was passed authorising modernisation of a key part of the Grand Union Canal. The Braunston-Birmingham section had been built narrow and the locks could accommodate only a single narrowboat. The section between Napton and Camp Hill Top Lock was rebuilt to take widebeam boats or barges up to 12 feet 6 inches (3.81 m) in beam, or two narrowboats. The canal was dredged and bank improvements carried out: the depth was increased to 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) to allow heavier cargoes, and the minimum width increased to 26 feet (7.9 m) to enable two boats of 12 feet 6 inches to pass. Lock works were completed in 1934 when the Duke of Kent opened the new broad locks at Hatton, and other improvements finished by 1937.

However, these improvements to depth and width were never carried out between Braunston and London. Camp Hill Locks in Birmingham were not widened, as it would have been very expensive and of little point, since they lead only to further flights of locks not in the ownership of the Grand Union. A new canal basin and warehouse were constructed at Tyseley, above Camp Hill, to deal with this. Although the Grand Union company had a number of broad boats built to take advantage of the improvements, they never really caught on and the canal continued to be operated largely by pairs of narrow boats, whose journeys were facilitated by the newly widened locks in which they could breast up.

All that needs to be said, if anything, is along the lines of the 1930's improvements to the Grand Union Canal terminated at the Sparkbrook section before Camp Hill top lock.--Rupples (talk) 22:33, 10 April 2022 (UTC)