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The charity making life better by water

Ways to contact us

Our normal opening hours are 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday and 9am to 5pm, Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays.

Festive season opening hours

  • 24 December – 8am to 4pm
  • 25 December – Closed
  • 26 December – Closed
  • 27 to 30 December – 9am to 5pm
  • 31 December – 9am to 4pm
  • 1 January - Closed
  • 2 January – return to normal opening

You can still contact us in the following ways:

In an emergency:

Use our emergency and out of hours numbers

Before contacting us:

Check our boat licences, cycling, walking, fishing and other FAQs

Use Live chat

The pop up boxes are on key customer service pages.

Use Twitter

Please send photos and messages to our social media team at @CanalRiverTrust, who will then forward them to the customer service team.

Email us

Fill in your contact details on our email form at the bottom of the page (check your email address is correct). Then use the dropdown menu to select your reason for contacting us. Please provide as much detail as you can.

We'll respond within the next five working days, if your question is urgent, use our Live Chat.

To send a photo

  • Tell us in the form's message box that you need to send a photo
  • Make sure it's an emailable size
  • We'll send you the direct email to send your photo to

Write to head office at:

Canal & River Trust
National Waterways Museum Ellesmere Port
South Pier Road
Ellesmere Port
Cheshire
CH65 4FW

Call 0303 040 4040

  • Monday to Friday, 8.00am – 6.00pm
  • Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays, 9.00am – 5.00pm

Opening hours over the festive period:

  • 24 December – 8am to 4pm
  • 25 December – Closed
  • 26 December – Closed
  • 27 to 30 December – 9am to 5pm
  • 31 December – 9am to 4pm
  • 1 January - Closed
  • 2 January – return to normal opening

Send a cheque made payable to 'the Canal & River Trust' to:

Canal & River Trust
Bumpers Way
Bumpers Farm
Chippenham
SN14 6NG

Please enclose a note with your name and contact details so we can write to say thank you.

Calls to this number cost no more than calls to geographic (01 and 02) numbers and are included in inclusive minutes and discount schemes in the same way. See OFCOM for more details.

If you are getting in touch to let us know about an incident or near miss, please complete the visitor incident report form.

Contact us form

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