Six years after planning began, volunteers are digging 750 metres of new canal at Eastington, and the River Frome is now diverted under the M5.

Volunteers have started digging a new canal across the fields at Eastington, on a route that was filled in when the M5 was built.

The Cotswold Canals Trust says roughly 750 metres of new canal is being cut east from John Robinson Lock towards the motorway. It is the first construction work ever done on this stretch. The Trust’s own project page puts it plainly: the canal here “was infilled in the early 1970s when the M5 was built so there has been no restoration on this section, until summer of 2026”.

Eastington is about five miles west of Stroud, between Stonehouse and the A38.

The section is called the Missing Mile, and it is the gap that stops the restored Stroudwater Navigation reaching the national waterway network. Stroud District Council says construction began after six years of planning, design and preparation, and after planning permission was granted in June 2024.

What is actually being built

The Missing Mile means reinstating 1.6 kilometres of canal and towpath between the A38 and John Robinson Lock. According to the Trust, the new stretch will include:

  • roughly 750 metres of new channel, dug by volunteer teams
  • two new locks
  • new flood banks either side
  • a new towpath
  • a mooring basin
  • a new canal channel carried through the River Frome beneath the M5

The towpath is being built to a minimum of 2.5 metres wide at the top of the bank, which the Trust says makes it wheelchair friendly.

Progress so far: about 120 metres

The Trust posted a progress update on 6 August. At that point approximately 120 metres of channel had been dug, the bottom levelled, and the banks either side shaped and compacted.

That leaves around 630 metres to go on the eastern side of the motorway.

The build is more exacting than it looks. Because the first stretch crosses a floodplain, the Environment Agency requires the banks to reach a specific height above sea level and to be shaped to an agreed profile, so the floodplain still works in a flood. The Trust describes the method:

  • banks built from subsoil, compacted in layers about 300mm thick with a four tonne ride-on roller
  • steeper slopes compacted with a remote-controlled sheep’s foot roller
  • the canal side of each bank dressed with about 900mm of clay to hold water
  • the finished banks topped with topsoil and seeded

Depth, width and bank height are checked constantly with a laser level and a GPS mapping tool.

The M5 crossing

The engineering under the motorway is not a volunteer job. Stroud District Council is acting as Principal Contractor for that element, working with specialist contractors.

The River Frome has already been diverted through an existing culvert beneath the M5, and temporary dams have been installed so the new canal channel can be built in the river bed under the motorway.

Chris Mitford-Slade, the Cotswold Canals Connected project director, said the work “provides a blue-green corridor under the M5 for the first time since 1969, reconnecting communities and bringing benefits to a wide range of people”.

David Hagg, chair of trustees at the Cotswold Canals Trust, called the start of construction “a truly historic moment” and said it reflected “the extraordinary commitment of our volunteers, partners and supporters”.

Where the money came from

The Missing Mile sits inside Cotswold Canals Connected, a partnership led by Stroud District Council and the Cotswold Canals Trust with the Canal & River Trust, Gloucestershire County Council, the Stroud Valleys Canal Company and Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust.

  • The programme has had £15.4 million from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
  • In November 2025 it was awarded a further £6.46 million specifically to deliver Phase 1B, after Covid delays and construction inflation blew a hole in the original 2020 funding.
  • The A38 roundabout crossing, completed in 2020, was built by county council contractors with a £4 million grant from National Highways’ Environmental Designated Funds scheme.

Phase 1B is the whole 6 kilometre stretch, about 3.7 miles, from Saul Junction on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal to the Ocean Railway Bridge at Stonehouse.

Where the Missing Mile sits inside Phase 1B of the Cotswold Canals restoration A scale bar of the 6 kilometre Phase 1B route from Saul Junction to the Ocean Railway Bridge at Stonehouse. Within it, the 1.6 kilometre Missing Mile runs between the A38 and John Robinson Lock. Inside that, about 750 metres of new channel is being dug, of which roughly 120 metres was complete on 6 August 2026. The Missing Mile is 1.6km of a 6km restoration, and 120m of it is dug Cotswold Canals Trust Phase 1B project page and its Missing Mile update of 6 August 2026. Bars drawn to scale. Phase 1B: Saul Junction to Ocean Railway Bridge, Stonehouse 6,000m The Missing Mile: A38 to John Robinson Lock 1,600m New channel being dug east from John Robinson Lock 750m planned 120m dug by 6 August Source: Cotswold Canals Trust. Graphic by Stroud Today
The dig that started this summer is a small red bar inside a much longer project. It is also the piece that has never been built before.

What it means for you

  • If you walk the towpath at Eastington, the footpath alongside the south bank of the River Frome is temporarily closed. A signed diversion runs through the Missing Mile site, so walkers can still get through.
  • If you drive the M5 near Junction 13, the work under the motorway is happening in the river bed, not on the carriageway. No M5 closures are attached to it. Live closures are on our Stroud roadworks and travel page.
  • If you want to help, the dig is volunteer-led and the Trust says volunteer working days have been increased to keep the excavation on schedule.
  • If you are waiting for boats, this is not that moment. The Trust aims to reopen the Stonehouse to Saul Junction stretch to navigation by 2029.

Who came to see it

The Trust held an open and press day at the site in the week to 20 August. Those who attended included Dr Simon Opher MP, the MP for Stroud, and Stuart McLeod, director of England, London and South at The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

McLeod said the project was “restoring a vital corridor for nature after the landscape was divided by the M5”.

The Trust says construction will carry on over the coming months, with regular updates as it goes.

Sources

All sources checked on 30 August 2026. What is being built elsewhere in the district is on Stroud planning news, and live road closures are on Stroud roadworks and travel.