The Millennium Link
The Millennium Link
The Millennium Link project aims to restore the Union and Forth and Clyde canals to a fully navigable standard by summer 2001 and connect them together by a spectacular wheel shaped boat lift at Falkirk by early 2002. This will allow boats to travel from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and from the Forth to the Clyde by water, for the first time in over sixty years. The project will cost 78 million pounds, 30 million of which is being contributed by the National Lottery Millennium Fund, and is expected to be a significant boost to the environment and economy of central Scotland, creating jobs, encouraging tourism, and creating a green corridor right across the country.
The first of three major milestones was reached in May 2001 when work on the Forth and Clyde Canal was completed and it was reopened to boat traffic. The Union Canal followed suit three months later, and the Falkirk Wheel linking them together should be fully opened by summer 2002. Click here for a full list of obstructions which have been removed by the project.
The two photos below show the impact of one of the biggest improvements so far made by the project:
For information on how the project is progressing, visit the news page.
Some obstructions now also have a page of their own, with chronological pictures of the restoration work going on there. Click the links to see pages about:
to the main canal page