200 volunteers who cleared a section of the canal. The Shropshire Union Canal Society had already begun campaigning for the restoration of the canal and in the run-up to the event, members attended council meetings, mounted displays in the town and organised a visit to Market Drayton for Welshpool Town Council, to see another section of the Shropshire Union where progress was being made. Key players included Graham Palmer, the organiser of the London and Home Counties Working Party Group of the Inland Waterways Association. They published a journal called Navvies Notebook which co-ordinated volunteer activity on the canals across Britain and within a year had become the Waterway Recovery Group. It was agreed that volunteers would tackle the section from Welshpool Lock northwards to Mill Lane. Despite high-level opposition to restoration by British Waterways, at local level they agreed to shut off the feed to the southern section and lower the water level so that water could be pumped out of the section through Welshpool, rather than discharged into the Lledan Brook. Welshpool Borough Council refused the use of their tip for material removed from the canal but a local farmer called W Davies offered the use of his land. Buttington Contractors offered items of equipment and the event was planned for the weekend of 18 and 19 October 1969. Some 100 volunteers were expected and pumping began on Friday evening. The Severn River Board removed over 700 fish on Saturday morning and numbers attending exceeded expectations. Despite warnings by British Waterways not to touch it, the Lledan Brook flood paddle was opened to assist in the drainage of the canal and over 200 people set to work using hand tools and borrowed equipment including a mobile crane, ten dumper trucks, four 7-ton tipper trucks, three JCB diggers and a Hy-Mac long arm excavator. Brian Haskins, the British Waterways area engineer from Northwich, visited the site and overlooked the use of the flood paddle. There was considerable interest from the townspeople and the number of onlookers became a bit of a hazard. The cleared canal was refilled on the Sunday and the Mayor and Mayoress rode along the section on a cruiser that had been trailed from Market Drayton. The canal route for the bypass was subsequently rejected by a public enquiry. The Inland Waterways Amenity Advisory Council published a review on 20 August 1971 which assessed the potential