A gift of old timber from the owners of a demolished house  which backs on to the Swansea Canal has allowed us the opportunity to use the canal for its original purpose; transporting raw materials. The distance the timbers need to travel is not great, maybe one hundred yards or so. And the volume of wood prevents us using a barge (even if we had one). But just the thought of using the  natural flow of the canal water to take some of the timber from the back garden of the house to our own work site in the Old Highways Depot, Clydach is enough to take you back to the era of flat caps, gaiters and fully functioning locks.  And think of the petrol we are saving on the use of a lorry.

We thank the owners of the house for allowing us to use the timber. With it, we will build a temporary wooden compound in the Depot site in which we can put all our equipment and machinery. At present we use the land owned by the builders next to our site for this purpose, but we cannot continue to rely on their goodwill.   Soon, hopefully, they will be redeveloping their part of the site and we would have to move our stuff out anyway.

Sound timbers similar to these scaffoding planks will be floated down the canal saving transport costs and reusing a valuable resource.