Canal de Pommerœul à Condé
The Canal de Pommerœul à Condé (German: Pommerœul-Condé Canal) is a shipping canal in the border area between France , Hauts-de-France , and Belgium , Wallonia .
course
It branches off the canalized Scheldt in France between the places Fresnes-sur-Escaut and Condé-sur-l'Escaut and after six kilometers reaches the Belgian border at Saint-Aybert . There it continues, passes the towns of Hensies and Pommerœul and, after a total length of about 13 kilometers, flows into the Belgian Canal Nimy-Blaton-Péronnes . It has only two locks on Belgian territory.
On the French side it runs through the Regional Nature Park Scarpe-Schelde ( French Parc naturel régional Scarpe-Escaut ), on the Belgian side through the Nature Park Scheldt Plains ( French Parc naturel Plaines de l'Escaut ).
history
It was built in the early 19th century during Napoleon's reign and commissioned in 1817. Originally it reached as far as the Belgian city of Mons and was therefore then called Canal de Mons à Condé .
The Pommerœul-Antoing Canal was built from 1823 to 1826 (replaced in the 1960s by the larger Nimy-Blaton-Péronnes Canal, see below). Coal from the Borinage (the industrial landscape around the city of Mons ), which was transported in the direction of the Scheldt, no longer needed to be shipped through France.
In the course of the canal modernization in Belgium it was replaced in the 1960s in the Mons-Pommerœul section by the Nimy-Blaton-Péronnes Canal, which was dimensioned for large shipping. The French section was not converted to the Grand Gabarit ship norm until 1982.
In 1992 the canal was closed to shipping on the French side. Since then, ships that come on the canalized Scheldt and want to continue towards Charleroi or Brussels have had to make a detour of over 20 kilometers. There are therefore always efforts to reopen the canal.
As part of a project called the Seine-Escaut Liaison (Seine-Schelde connection), the construction of a 106-kilometer modern canal called Canal Seine-Nord Europe (SNE) was considered and decided. A completion in 2017 is considered possible.
Web links
- Information about the channel in the Babel project (French)
- Overview map: Waterways in Belgium (PDF file; 231 kB)
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 50 ° 26 ′ 18 ″ N , 3 ° 35 ′ 40 ″ E