Eager to keep our side of the bargain to clear the overgrown bramble in St. Benedict’s Church car park in exchange for Fr. Nevin generously allowing us to cut  through his boundary wall to the route of the new canal towpath, we brought loppers, shears, drag forks and wheelbarrows a-plenty with us to the church grounds.

The gardens are very well maintained at the Pontardawe Road end but nature has taken over the nearer you get to the canal, as you can see below.

We got a bonfire going and by the end of the morning a great deal of the ‘rough’ had been removed.

We also did one more thing for the Church in return for their generosity. The entrance to the church  car park is quite narrow so, following Fr Nevins’ instructions, we cut through a metal stanchion which added a foot or two to the width of the entrance. There are bags full of unused rough chippings in the depot so we filled in the hole with these.

While all this was going on, John Davies was taking Paul Jones, the administrator of the Rural Communities Development Fund at the City and County of Swansea,  for a trip along the canal from Coed Gwilym Park to the Trebanos Locks. This is the section we hope to dredge in partnership with the Canal and River Trust who own the canal. Funding from the RCDF would help us all achieve this goal and we await a decision on our first stage application at the end of March.

When John, our liason Officer, returned with Paul I took this photo of them in the depot yard.

Left to right, are John Davies, Paul Jones, John Gwalter (Treasurer and acting Secretary), Gareth Bowen (a very hard working volunteer) and Gordon Walker (Chairman).