Students share visions for regenerating former canal

Designs for bringing Burslem waterway back to life go on display at uni show

- Phil Corrigan

ARCHITECTURE students have shown off their ideas for bringing a town's forgotten canal back into use.

Burslem Branch Canal once ran between the Mother Town and the Trent and Mersey Canal, helping to carry Stoke-on-Trent's pottery to customers around the world.

But it was closed in 1962 and later in-filled. Now there is little evidence it was ever there. Burslem Port Trust is campaigning for the canal to be reopened, saying it could boost tourism and the economy while restoring an important part of the city's industrial heritage.

Trust members have been working with architecture students at Staffordshire University, who have drawn up proposals for the canal and port as part of their course. Their completed projects, including plans, models and detailed computer generated images, are on display as part of the university's degree show.

Although the students' work is speculative - restoring Burlem's canal and port will cost millions of pounds - BPT members believe their proposals demonstrate what can be achieved, and how it could benefit Burslem.

BPT design director David Broome, a retired architect, is very impressed with the students' projects, five of whom focused on the canal.

He said: “All of it is so exciting. From an architect's point of view, the amount of work they’re producing is phenomenal, compared to what I did in my third year at university.”