A NEW bid is to be made for lottery cash for a project that will eventually help create a new inland waterway network around Swindon.

Two months ago the Heritage Lottery Fund decided to defer a decision on whether to support the project to restore the old Cotswold Canals.

They also asked British Water-ways to reduce by about half its request for £22m to help pay for the restoration of a 10-mile stretch of waterway.

British Waterways' decision was taken against a background of increasing demands for lottery funds.

The lottery bid was made by the Waterways on behalf of the Cotswold Canals Partnership, which wanted the money to help pay for the first phase of its canal restoration programme.

Now British Waterways has reduced its bid to cover a six-mile stretch of the canal and will be putting in their application this week. Andrew Stumpf, the British Waterway's project manager, said: "We were disappointed with the Heritage Lottery Fund's request to reduce our bid.

"But we're determined to go ahead with the project to restore the Cots-wold Canals and unlock their significant social, economic and environ- mental benefits for the local area.

"The fund acknowledges the immense heritage and regeneration benefits of the project but in the current climate of fierce competition for funds couldn't allocate the full £22m requested."

The bid, said Mr Stumpf, had therefore been scaled down to about half.

"Although in the short term the revitalised section of waterway won't be attached to the main network, it retains a high proportion of the original project's benefits to the local community.

"This includes securing two-thirds of the heritage structures, enhancing the wildlife sites and delivering the majority of the economic benefits predicted to flow from the regeneration of the canal corridor through the Stroud stretch of the canal."

The Cotswold Canals are made up of two stretches of waterways the 29 mile-long Thames and Severn Canal and the seven mile Stroud-water Navigation and will eventually link up the rivers Thames and Severn again.

When restored, the canals will form a continuous waterway from Saul Junction to Lechlade, which will include the two-mile long Sapperton Tunnel and 57 locks.

It will eventually be part of the Wessex Waterway Network, which will link up the North Wilts Canal, the Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal, the Kennet and Avon Canal and the River Thames.

In doing so it is expected to create a new leisure, boating and tourist boom area around Swindon.

If everything does go to plan, boats will once again sail past the town as they make their way to the Cotswold Water Park and the rivers Thames and Severn.

If this does happen then the knock-on effect will be more jobs and a big boost to Swindon economy.

Mr Stumpf said that recent research was predicting that linking the Rivers Thames and Severn again would be a catalyst for both urban and rural regeneration.

It would bring an estimated 1.7m new visitor days to the area each year, generating £6.8m a year for the local economy and create 2,000 new permanent jobs in tourism alone.