As our members will know, we have been liaising with the Canal & Rivers Trust for a number of months now with regards to the water levels throughout 2020. What with this and the Coronavirus restrictions it’s fair to say it has been a challenging year for Rotherham Sailing Club!

The Canal & Rivers Trust have today announced a £5 million upgrade programme to the reservoir.

They will be upgrading the reservoir in line with modern day standards, which will involve redesigning the overflow spillway to increase its resilience. This will ensure people can continue to enjoy the reservoir for many more years to come. 

The main upgrade works are expected to start in 2022 and be completed within 12 months. In the meantime, there may be noticeable temporary changes to the reservoir water level and members of their team will be carrying out investigations on site. At times, the necessary changes to water levels at Harthill Reservoir will also affect Pebley Reservoir and the Chesterfield Canal.

The Trust have assured us they are committed to ensuring local residents, businesses, and user groups are made aware of these activities and kept updated as the project develops. This is obviously something we will be pushing for an improvement in on to ensure we have more notice in the coming couple of years, rather than having to chase updates. In particular how it will affect our sailing and swimming activities in the next 2 years.

Members of the CRT team will be hosting an online meeting on Thursday 7 January at 7.00pm to introduce the project and invite any further questions. This meeting is open to any interested members of the public.

We will of course be attending on behalf of the club, however should any members also wish to attend please don’t hesitate to get in touch to register your attendance at this online meeting or ask any questions you may have about the project. You can contact their our project team by email or calling their freephone information line on 0800 028 8141.

Their official announcement can be found here