The first boats to arrive at the junction of the old Burslem Branch Canal in Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent moored on a beautifully sunny Monday March 8^th in celebration of the completion of 6 month’s worth of ground clearance of the canal line.  They were Marigold working as a passenger boat and Bream an ex-FMC motor owned by Steve Wood.   

The old canal breached in December 1961 and the junction was closed and the canal infilled shortly after.  Since 1996 the Burslem Port team have been working towards re-opening the whole canal and the ground clearance work was the first physical activity since then.

Renew North Staffordshire, the primary housing regeneration body that has a major interest in Middleport’s renewal, provided the funding of £46,800.  Renew had previously been the main funder of a £52,000 Burslem Port Feasibility Study, to which the Trent and Mersey Canal Society and the IWA Stoke Branch were also contributors.

Marigold carried 6 young trainees, managed by PM Training of Hanley under the umbrella of the Government’s Future Jobs Fund, who with many other colleagues at times, have carried out the clearance work, which started on November 2^nd.  It was originally scheduled to take only three months but the task has been much greater than predicted and extra time was allocated.

Certificates were then awarded to the young men for their achievement by Roger Savage, Chairman of Burslem Port Project, and they then escorted senior invited guests from the City Council, the regeneration agencies, local waterways groups and BW along the 3/8ths mile cleared length to the terminal end.

David Dumbelton, Burslem Port’s Project Officer stated “Today’s event demonstrates, in this beautiful Spring weather, that the Burslem Port Project has itself reached Spring time in it’s progress towards completion”. 

This event has been a major step forward for Burslem Port in its 13 years life with the next activity taking place in April when an informal WRG group undertake an investigatory dig alongside the bakery buildings.  This will explore the nature of the infill and any remaining elements of the wash wall to provide information for later work.

Much more political, investigatory and planning work needs to be undertaken by the Burslem Port team, gradually moving to a programme of step-by-step regeneration, linking in with the major reconstruction of the Middleport community.  There are many more steps to be undertaken before eventual fulfillment of their ambitions but, this March, substantial progress has been made and commitment by public bodies has been demonstrated.