A £15m funding bid to restore the canal between Stonehouse and Saul Junction is today being submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
Stroud District Council (SDC) has almost completed a six mile section between Stonehouse and Brimscombe Port, but the waterway is ‘landlocked’.
Now the Cotswold Canals Trust is trying to complete the final four miles of the Stroudwater Navigation Canal to open it up with a crucial link to the Gloucester Sharpness Canal.
The project will include building a new railway bridge, channelling under the M5 and digging a mile of new canal.
It is part of an ongoing project that aims to restore the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames and Severn Canal, to link the River Severn with the River Thames.
The work is expected to take up to six years to complete.
This morning trust chair Jim White and vice chair Val Kirby took their bid down the M5 to the regional headquarters of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Exeter.
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