Closed to navigation since 1992 due to massive silting, the Condé-Pommeroeul canal is one of the three outlets of the navigable network towards Belgium, within the Seine-Scheldt link.
Since 2016, Voies navigables de France (VNF) and the Service public de Wallonie (SPW) have been carrying out major dredging and recalibration work on the canal, including the construction of three material management sites, the extraction of one million cubic metres of sediment and the excavation of 450,000 cubic metres of freehold land for widening.
The reopening and reshaping of this 6 km stretch of canal will allow boats up to 3,000 tonnes (compared with 1,350 tonnes in the 1990s) to save half a day’s navigation by avoiding a 30 km diversion.
Evolution of the Condé-Pommeroeul canal following the recalibration works (from bottom to top). Copyright@VNF
A few months before the official resumption of navigation, scheduled for September 2023, Thierry Guimbaud, VNF Director General and Marie-Céline Masson, VNF Nord Pas-de-Calais Regional Director and Manager of the Seine-Scheldt EEIG invited the EEIG’s partners on Friday 7 April to discover, during a short navigation, the results of the work that is being completed.
The operation to reopen the canal to navigation will have cost nearly €80 million (of which 15% will be devoted to ecological and landscaping improvements) and, like all the Seine-Scheldt network projects, benefits from the financial support of the European Commission through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
Thierry Guimbaud, Director General of VNF, Marie-Céline Masson, Director of the Nord Pas-de-Calais region of VNF and Manager of the Seine-Scheldt EEIG, with representatives of the EEIG during navigation on the Condé-Pommeroeul canal.
Copyright@VNF
