VITAL conservation work to Basingstoke Canal has been carried out by volunteers.

The historic waterway was acquired in the 1970s by Hampshire County Council and Surrey County Council, which entered into a partnership with the then Surrey and Hampshire Canal Society (SHCS) to restore the canal and re-open it to navigation from the River Wey in Surrey to Greywell in Hampshire.

Members of what’s now the Basingstoke Canal Society have been busy clearing the eastern portal to the Greywell Tunnel, near Odiham.

This latest project needed care as The Greywell Tunnel has become a haven for thousands of bats. The entrance to the tunnel was overgrown and obscured by thick vegetation but hours of hard work by volunteers has now cleared it.

In its heyday the canal used to run into the centre of Basingstoke but the tunnel suffered a roof fall in 1932 and this effectively prevented the restoration of the final five miles.

The works to clear the tunnel follow on from other important conservation projects undertaken by the society over the last 12 months.

Future works include repairs to the canal west of Swan Bridge in North Warnborough and a long-held aspiration of the society remains to do what it can to protect the last five miles of the canal – the stretch west of Greywell Tunnel to Basingstoke.

It’s unlikely it can be re-opened to boats but the society hopes the old route of the towpath could be restored as a public footpath.