Following my appeal and vigorous representations by several members, Chris Potter has kindly allowed us access to his archive of cine films. This consists of 24 reels of varying length of either standard 8 or Super 8 cine film. Among them were 9 reels which contained priceless scenes of club activities in the early 1980's. Generally these are of good quality or better. It is now our intention to digitise these scenes, edit and make them available as part of the early boating series.

I must record my thanks to Chris for making this possible. and a very big thank you to Graham Speechley for all the work that has gone on before with the digitising and editing of the Ben Seymour - 'Beyond' series which now stretches to 7 DVD's and now this series which will contain another 6. Graham has developed and refined the process of digitising cine film to a high standard and puts in many hours of editing time on each DVD; time which is given freely out of personal interest. I, on behalf of the club, would like to record here my sincere thanks.

Marple Civic Society have been in discussions with British Waterways and other parties for some time with regard to BW’s plans for the regeneration of Marple Wharf. The original plan was for the removal of boating facilities and the construction of 11 houses.

After a period of consultation, in which there was apparently an embargo on campaigning, Marple Civic Society were able to bring local residents and boaters up-to-date at an event in Marple Library on Tuesday 23rd February. This involved poster displays with members of the Civic Society on hand to explain and discuss matters. When I was there, at the beginning, these MCS members were being kept very busy and I can only hope their voices survived to the end.

There were some new proposals from BW which involved a reduction in the number of houses with a single storey nursery whose inclusion was designed to permit a ‘better view’ of the warehouse. Toilets and boating facilities were at the back of the canal warehouse with a water point at the front. Unfortunately, as ‘New Horizons’ would be mooring on the water point this rather limits its use. Furthermore, emptying a toilet would involve carrying it some distance. I am sure any members who visited the event will have formed their own opinions and may be able to pass on their views.

A Summary by MCS pointed out that the options were generally an improvement on the original BW proposal :

But

An alternative would be to wait for Stockport Council to be in a position to raise HLF (Heritage Lottery Fund) monies to regenerate the wharf and canals. SMBC was invited to and attended a consultation meeting with British Waterways. SMBC proposed that BW put the present project on hold until 2013 when Heritage Lottery Funding may become available. HLF could enable a comprehensive project for Marple Canals and Wharf. This proposal is currently under discussion between SMBC and BW.

A joint regeneration scheme would focus on Community, Recreation and Tourism. For example : Activity Centre, Education Centre, Café, Boating facilities.

We await further developments but in the mean-time we should be very grateful for the hard-working members of MCS who have been fighting BW on our behalf.