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The Crumpsall-based Waterway Recovery Group has joined hundreds of volunteers from all over the country at Over near Gloucester to work on the former Hereford and Gloucester Canal.

Volunteers have been called to the site of a former hospital which had been built over the former canal but has now been demolished revealing the original canal basin and a lock into the River Severn.

Developers have given the waterway group permission to restore the basin, its walls and the adjacent lock but have only until August this year to complete the task. If the deadline is not met, the canal will again be filled in.

David McCarthy, who runs the group from his home on Crumpsall Lane, hoped to recruit extra helpers to take part in the weekend working parties to make sure the task is completed.

He said: "If we fail, it will be filled in again and lost forever so we and all the other branches of the group will be making the long journey to try to get it all over at Over."

The project is the latest undertaken by the Waterway Recovery Group which organises regular weekend trips to carry out environmental work on canals and rivers.

In the last year working parties have made weekend trips to restoration projects at Aston on the Montgomery Canal, Birmingham, Droitwich, Lichfield, Macclesfield and the Sankey canal, the oldest in the country, at Newton-le-Willows.

Volunteers pay ?5 towards the cost of food and transport but the groups main funding comes through recycling paper from doorstep collections in north Manchester.

Last year the amount of paper collected increased for the first time in four years to 111 tons. Forthcoming collections will be held on February 26, April 1, May 6, June 10 and July 15.