Basingstoke Canal, which runs through Odiham, Fleet, Aldershot, Camberley and Mychett, froze over.
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Big freeze causing safety concerns
By Rebecca Connop PriceJanuary 08, 2009
Plummeting temperatures have created icy conditions across the Star Courier area. Temperatures as low as minus 10°C have been recorded in Farnborough — making the area one of the coldest in England.
Only Benson in Oxfordshire and Chesham in Buckinghamshire were reported to have had colder days this past week.
A spokesman from the Met Office at RAF Odiham said Monday night’s
-9.9°C was the coldest January day at the base since 1987.
The following evening, Tuesday, the lowest temperature was nearly as cold, at -9.7°C.
He said: “We’ve had particularly cold air and the skies were clear on Monday night, so what warmth we had just radiated away into space, and the air on the ground got cold pretty quickly.
“Tuesday night was different in that the night started out clear and then a blanket of cloud came in during the night so the minimum temperature was in the evening.
“By the morning, it was only about –2°C.
“Had the cloud not come in from the north, it would have cooled.”
The coldest ever January day at Odiham was -14°C, on January 13 1982.
The Met Office was warning that the cold spell looked set to continue.
It forecasted that low daytime temperatures and overnight frosts will carry on, though perhaps not as low as before.
Dave Robinson, head of government services at the Met Office said: “We are expecting the cold weather to continue with the coldest conditions across southern and eastern parts of the UK.”
The sustained freezing weather has meant that the Basingstoke Canal has frozen over in several places.
But authorities are warning that the ice is extremely thin in a lot of places so people must stay off the ice.
Ian Brown, director of the Basingstoke Canal Authority, said the water was dangerous.
“Although the canal is not very deep, in places it’s four or five feet deep, but the water is extremely cold and hypothermia could result literally in seconds.
“The submerged vegetation is also quite thick and there is a danger of getting trapped under the ice,” he said.
On Tuesday, Fleet mum Sarah Horton was walking along the canal near the junction of Kings Road and Pondtail Road when she saw two teenagers walking on the ice.
“One teenager stood right in the middle of the canal, at a wide point where there’s space for the boats to turn, no less, while his mate, a third teenager on the bank, took photos,” she said.
After she warned them it wasn’t safe, the teenagers left the ice.
Mrs Horton said she worried that younger children might try to copy the behaviour.
Mr Brown said that although there have never been reports of anyone drowning in the water, people have been hurt.
“People have suffered quite serious hypothermia,” he said.
The ice causes other troublesome behaviour, he added.
“It’s common practice for young schoolchildren to grab an article of clothing from another child and throw it on the ice,” he said. “The other major attraction of ice is trying to break it up, so we get logs and sticks on the ice. The problem is when it melts it can sink and then become a major obstruction to navigation.
“The message to go out to the general public — especially to parents and headteachers — is to make sure that their children and pupils know about the dangers.”
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