The objects of the Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust are to restore, preserve, maintain in good order and improve the existing Caldon Canal and all former arms of the Caldon Canal including the branch known as the Uttoxeter Canal for the use and benefit of the public.
Text from CIO constitution
The Caldon Canal Committee was inaugurated in 1963 in response to a 1961 ultimatum that the canal was to be closed. The committee, shortly afterwards, became the Caldon Canal Society and a registered charity. After years of maintenance and restoration work, Staffordshire County Council together with the Stoke-on-Trent City Council and British Waterways Board agreed to fund the restoration project in 1970 and on 28th September 1974 the waterway was open again to navigation.
In 1985, the Caldon Canal was upgraded to cruiseway status and became eligible for Government support. Improvement of the Canal and its environs is still continuing.
On Friday 7 February 2003 the restoration of the Uttoxeter Canal commenced, when volunteers from the Caldon Canal Society and the Waterway Recovery started to clear the trees growing in the top lock and basin of the Uttoxeter Canal at Froghall. At the 2003 AGM of the Society a resolution was passed “that the Constitution of the Society should be added to in order to include support for the restoration of the Uttoxeter Canal and all the arms of the Caldon Canal” and at the next AGM in 2004 - 30 years after the Caldon Canal was officially reopened - a motion was passed to change the name of the Society to the Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust in order to incorporate these wider interests. The lock and basin at Froghall reopened in July 2005.
In 2007 the Trust, in partnership with Staffs County Council, local authorities and Inland Waterways Association commissioned Halcrow Consulting to undertake the Uttoxeter Canal Restoration Outline Feasibility Study. This report, delivered in October 2009 concluded that “this is a technically feasible project. While there are a number of significant issues to address, with the appropriate work and consultation this should be possible.”
In 2010 the Trust joined the Churnet Valley Living Landscape Partnership and proposed three projects including the restoration of Bridge 70 of the Uttoxeter Canal as part of a Landscape Conservation Action Plan, submitted to Heritage Lottery Fund in October 2011. This project gained HLF approval in June 2012 and volunteer-led work parties began in March 2013.
In 2013 the Trust successfully campaigned for the line of the Uttoxeter Canal in Froghall to be protected in the emerging Masterplan for redevelopment of the area. The Trust continues to participate in ongoing studies to investigate the potential to restore, extend and develop the canal into Leek.
The Trust identified that its current legal constitution was no longer appropriate for planned activities, so began the process of conversion to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation in January 2014.