Visitor parking boost for K&A Canal Pumping Station

The water powered Claverton Pumping Station on the 
Kennet & Avon Canal. Picture by Bob Naylor

The historic, water powered, pumping station at Claverton on the Kennet & Avon Canal near Bath will soon be able to welcome many more visitors thanks to a deal struck between the Kennet & Avon Canal Trust, who run the pumping station under a lease agreement with British Waterways, local landowner, Digger Smith and Bathampton Angling Association.

Digger Smith of Watership Farm has sold land next to the railway line near to the Pumping Station allowing a new car park to be built. Anglers and visitors to the pumping station will no longer have to struggle to find parking space in the very narrow Ferry Lane.

It has taken almost four years to finalise the deal — getting planning permission from Bath and North East Somerset Council for a for a car park took two years — and then it took another two years for the legal process to buy the land.

The cost of the land was met jointly by the K&A Canal Trust and Bathampton Anging Association and work will begin in the new year under the project management of John Webb.