'Tamworth and Shenstone Flooded'. Could this really happen? The Chasewater dam on a reservoir just west of Lichfield which holds back 1 billion gallons of water is in need of a £13 million repair. The reservoir which is used to top up the Midlands canal network was built 211 years ago and the dam is crumbling. If this was ever breached it could flood parts of Shenstone and Tamworth.
But help is at hand, Lichfield District Council is slowly draining the water from the reservoir into the local canal so that repairs can be carried out. It will take until the end of 2010 to fix the dam, and three years to refill.
The work, paid for by Lichfield District Council, is to restore the dam after over two centuries of wear-and-tear.
