The pre-conference tour for the British Dam Society conference in Leeds in September 2012 visited Yorkshire Water's Butterley reservoir and the Canal and River Trust's Stanedge tunnel.
The pre-conference tour set off in the cold and drizzle of our glorious summer for Yorkshire Water's Butterley reservoir, upstream of Marsden (Figure 1). This category A reservoir has recently had physical model testing undertaken on the spillway, resulting in recommendations for modifications in order safely to pass the design flood. The spillway is a grade II listed structure and Newman Booth (supervising engineer) and Andy Hughes (inspecting engineer) described the problems that Yorkshire Water was currently having in convincing the local community to back these works in the interests of safety.
The tour moved on to the Canal and River Trust's Stanedge tunnel (Figure 2) where we were treated to lunch in the visitor centre before undertaking a short boat trip through the tunnel. David Brown, Paul Howlett and other Canal and River Trust staff kindly provided a fascinating lecture on the history of the tunnel and the system of reservoirs that feed it and provided details of the recent major renovation works. The tunnel is notable because it is both the highest, longest and deepest canal tunnel in the UK. The tour finished with a walk over Tunnel End reservoir dam and then a short walk back to the coach along the towpath where one lucky canal boater had the benefit of 30 engineers to help him get his boat stuck in a lock (Figure 3)!
