Britain’s was the first country to develop a nationwide canal network which, at its peak, expanded to nearly 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) in length and has been in use for over 300 years. In that time they’ve moved from being vital trade routes to ignored and forgotten relics, but in the past few decades canals have enjoyed a resurgence. Now, in many cases, they’re seen as great places to keep fit by, live near and take holidays on.
They’re also somewhere where you’ll regularly come across one of our floating pontoons, whether it be pedestrian towpath diversions, pontoons housing scaffold towers for bridge repair and survey, public events or as per the attached images rafts floating plant down the canal to work sites.
In this instance our client had the ominous task of undertaking towpath remediation works along a section of canal North of London with no road access and where the nearest launch point onto the canal was nigh on 1 mile away.
That’s where we come in, we were able to launch our pontoons with permission from The Environment Agency, up canal and using one of our CRT licensed work boats and Suzuki outboard motors fitted directly to the pontoons. We were able to transport not only the excavator but also a 30x2m section of pontoon down the canal to the works location.
The 30x2m section of pontoon which was fitted with Combisafe edge protection on all exposed edges was then installed along the side of the towpath and used as a pedestrian diversion whilst the excavator went to work on the tow path.
On completion of the works we once again attended site to assist with the breakdown and recovery of the pontoons ensuring all equipment (excavator included) was transported safely back to the launch and recovery site and zero impact was left behind by us, other than a satisfied customer.
