MIDLAND CANAL SCHEME.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17008, 15 April 1926, Page 9

MIDLAND CANAL SCHEME.

LINKING UP BIRMINGHAM WITH THE MERSEY. LONDON, Feb. 22. A £6,500,000 canal development scheme for the purpose of linking up Birmingham with the Mersey is under consideration, and some headway was made at a private conference at Birmingham last week, at which there were present representatives of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and local authorities interested in the project. The idea is to widen and deepen tho existing waterways to permit of the passage of 100-tou barges instead of 30tou vessels, the present maximum. This will necessitate the development of tho many Black Country canals, including the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, the Trent and Mersey Canal, and the Weaver Navigation, and the route will be v.a Wolverhampton, the Potteries, Northwich, to Weston Marsh. The scheme will make possible the linking up of the Manchester Ship Canal, Liverpool, and Manchester, as well as the large canals of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

.The importainje of the scheme to the Midlands cannot be over-estimated, lor Die industries there have suffered seriously by reason of the high railway freightage, ami while many large firms hesitate (to establish works and factories in the Midlands for this reason, others have actually transferred their operations from llio inland area to places nearer the coast,.