Canal locks reopen after months of urgent repairs

Neil Bedford said the lock had been preserved for future generations

What are claimed to be the UK's longest flight of locks - a series of locks, stretching more than two miles (3.2km) - have reopened after five months of urgent repair work.

Tardebigge top lock in Worcestershire dates to the 19th Century and was closed in April by the Canal and River Trust after the structure "slid horizontally inwards".

Neil Bedford, a senior engineer for the trust, described the repair work as a "very big job".

"It's a Grade II listed structure so we have had to dismantle it using handheld tools, we've had to preserve as many of the original bricks that we could and we've had to rebuild it back the same," he said.

More than 20,000 bricks were used in the repairs with about half belonging to the original structure.

"We've retained as much of the original fabric as we could to preserve this lock for our future generations," Mr Bradford said.

Discussing why the lock needed to be closed, he explained that ground-penetrating radar revealed the wall at the lock had moved.

Tardebigge top lock failed in March after it "slid" horizontally, the trust said

"Whilst we knew there was an issue it was nothing particularly serious at that point. Where it failed was over the course of three days back in March," he said.

"The wall actually slid horizontally inwards and into the lock. So it moved by approximately 80 and 90 millimetres over three days.

"We're talking about a height of four metres and length was about 15 metres. That's a huge structure that has started to move."