I AM a life member of the Sankey Canal and Restoration Society. While I am taking a seasonal break, I have edited an article by Nick Coleman into a five-parter to encourage you into taking a healthy stroll along stretches of our favourite canal, whatever the season. “What state is the canal in now? What is its future and what plans, if any, are there for restoration works?"

Well, sections in water still exist, many of them pleasant spots, attractive wildlife corridors used by anglers, walkers and cyclists and where children are taken to feed the ducks and swans.

Equally some sections were used for landfill in the 1970s and in parts all evidence of the waterway has disappeared.

At other locations the canal is completely choked with reeds.

One remainder which does still exist, is the towpath from Spike Island at Widnes to central St Helens, together with short branches off to Blackbrook and other locations, and which is a public right of way.

This can be walked or cycled, a distance of around 16 miles from Widnes to central St Helens.

Unlike most of the country’s other canals which are the responsibility of The Canal And River Trust (formerly British Waterways), the Sankey is the responsibility of the three local authorities through which it passes, St Helens, Warrington and Halton.

Today there are marinas with boats moored along short stretches of the canal at Spike Island, Widnes and Fiddler’s Ferry, Warrington.

There are functioning locks at both locations giving access to and from the River Mersey, but the canal itself is no longer navigable between these two points, a distance of around 3 1/2 miles.

The locks at Widnes are in need of repair and some mud dredging is also required. A grant of £32,250 has however now been obtained to carry out the work.

There is a section still in water from Spike Island almost as far as Fiddler’s Ferry power station but then the waterway is choked with reeds up to the Fiddler’s Ferry marina.

With no major roads crossed, however, this is the easiest and most convenient section for restoration.

The Linking the Locks project’s aim is to restore this section to navigation over the next three years, via a joint project between Halton and Warrington Councils and the Sankey Canal Restoration Society (SCARS).

The contractor for the new Mersey Gateway Bridge has agreed to replace the fixed bridge to Spike Island with a swing bridge, and the task will be given to apprentices as a suitable project.

Railways once crossed here when Spike Island was a hive of industrial activity covered in railway sidings, whilst Gossage’s soap works, second only to Port Sunlight, occupied a vast area along the canal bank here.

Next to Spike Island is Catalyst, the museum of the chemical industry, which became an important aspect of the development of Widnes and Runcorn.

At Fiddler’s Ferry, the first sailing club was established in 1904 and some houseboats are said to have appeared here in the 1930s.

A long-gone railway station on the track which runs parallel to the canal, opened in 1853 by the St Helens Canal and Railway Company, brought visitors from Warrington for a day out, the last passengers arriving and departing in 1965.

The towpath of part of the route from Spike Island to Fiddler’s Ferry is currently closed between Spike Island and Carter House Bridge, where a track into Widnes crosses the canal, while construction work takes place on the new Mersey Gateway Bridge.

This will be another road link between Widnes and Runcorn crossing the Sankey Canal, River Mersey and Manchester Ship Canal.

A signposted and unattractive diversion is currently in place.

Carter House Bridge itself had to be replaced in 2009 and the fixed structure was replaced by a fully functioning swing bridge in anticipation of the waterway’s reopening.

Between the canal and the River Mersey is the Widnes Warth Nature Reserve, with its saltmarsh and mudflats which attracts wildlife, particularly migrating wading birds, with reed buntings and summer migrant warblers in the reed beds.

There is a walkway constructed over a portion of the saltmarsh and two viewing screens with several illustrated noticeboards giving the history of the area and descriptions of the wildlife.

Tied in with the Linking the Locks project is funding of £654,000 from the Coastal Communities Fund which will include a new lifting bridge over the canal providing road access to the Riverside Industrial Estate and boatyards situated between the canal and the river at Fiddler’s Ferry.

Part two next week.