A SCHEME to restore the canal locks on one of West Craven's most popular and picturesque stretches of waterway has come to fruition.

British Waterways has invested approximately £70,000 restoring two sets of tired old locks at Greenberfield Canal, which have been used by thousands of visitors over the last quarter of a century.

Lock keeper Graham Myers helped to fit the old locks 25 years ago when he first started working on the canals.

He told the Herald: "I might just miss them replacing these ones in another 25 years."

The first set of locks, which have been replaced are adjacent to the lock keeper's cottage and lie at the highest point of the Leeds to Liverpool canal.

A spokesman for British Waterways explained how work on the project had started in January with the canal having to be drained and was completed at the end of last week.

The scheme has already caught the imagination and interest of local school children.

It has helped to broaden the horizons of pupils at Coates Lane Primary School in Barnoldswick, who have followed the work from start to finish. They filmed the start of the project and the canal being drained with a video camera.

And then on Tuesday, children from class two, visited the canal. They are working on a technology project around "winding up mechanisms" and needed to look at examples of such mechanisms in the lock.

Teacher Martin Walker ex-plained how the project was part of the National Curriculum and how originally it had been very difficult to find any examples of "winding up mechanisms".

"It's even difficult to find the handles you used to use to wind the windows down in cars nowadays!"

He added that the canal has proved to be a source of inspiration for the children especially because it has so much history surrounding it.