Boaters' Update 28 March 2025

Working for boaters

It’s been a busy few months, but the winter stoppage programme has now passed and we’re on the cusp of Easter. As we’ve journeyed through winter these pages have been filled with snapshots of the work our charity has been doing to keep navigations open for boaters.

It’s never going to be possible to cover everything, there’s far too much, but here’s a roundup of examples of projects that typify what we’ve been doing:

Springing away from winter weather

With every appendage crossed, we really hope that a benign spring will lead us gently into summer. But, after a rowdy winter, it’ll come as no surprise that one of the biggest influences on our work has been the weather. Up and down the country teams will, wherever possible, continue working on the scheduled job in hand unless the weather makes it unsafe to do so. With more frequent extreme weather this is becoming more common.

As you scan through the gallery below, you’ll see that too much wind and rain cause most damage. In the West Midlands alone we dealt with over 500 windblown trees. In other areas, towpaths were washed away and embankments undermined, as seen on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, as we dealt with huge volumes of rain falling in short periods of time.

However, not all damage to the network was an act of nature.....

Inadvertent damage

Our ageing canal network is also subject to damage from other causes - often inadvertent and usually avoidable. Let's start with boat strikes. As part of our winter programme, the team were replacing the gate at Lock 15 on the Aylesbury Arm of the Grand Union Canal (GU), when they were called on to complete an emergency heel and collar repair at Lock 55 on the GU, following a boat strike that had caused damage to the bottom gate. Fortunately, in this case a recycled retro heel fit came from stock and was altered to fit. 

Lock 78 on the GU saw something similar, with a short navigation closure following a boat strike that resulted in the top gate being displaced from its pot. We were able to reseat Lock 78 and reopen navigation within 12 hours. 

We know it is sometimes tricky, but we really do need boaters to help us look after our canal infrastructure by opening both gates and not ‘nudging’ gates when going through locks.

A more deliberate act occurred at Bridge 110, Napton, on the Oxford Canal, which was struck by a vehicle that inexcusably then left the scene and left the Trust to pick up the cost. When this happens we are unable to recover the (not insignificant) costs of repair through their insurance. We also had to close the towpath due to unsafe brickwork. Our reactive response team mobilised swiftly, organised emergency road closures and rebuilt the bridge in 20 days.

While the examples above are frustrating, avoidable and costly, they are unlikely to have been intentional.

Fly tipping, however, is completely intentional with absolute disregard for the impact it has. It’s a year-round blight but one recent example happened at Kecksys Farm, near Sawbridgeworth, on the River Stort.

It’s a difficult-to-access site that has persistently been targeted for overstaying and fly tipping. To deal with this, our mooring rangers put a mooring suspension in place and, working with the nearby boat yard owners, were able to use their wharfage to transport the fly-tipping across the river using a workboat and removed it for disposal. The boat yard owners have now provided us with ongoing access to their wharfage. We are also investigating installing solar powered CCTV to help deter reoccurrence.

Proactive programme

As you’ve read above, events out of our control can sometimes determine the ‘to do’ list of priorities, but we’ve also been very busy on proactive works over the past few months. Aside from the more than 100 headline-grabbing lock gate replacements, smaller pieces of work, which will also improve your cruising experience, have been completed.

One example is on the Ashby Canal where we were able to secure third party funding to complete operational repairs to Shenton Aqueduct canal bank. Funding from Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council, which we matched, meant we were able to repair sheet piling walers (the waling is the piece of hardwood timber, or steel, that is bolted to the front of the piling to protect both piling and boats, and also to add rigidity to the piling) along the area above the aqueduct. Around 100m of waling was reinstated and, while there, we made the mooring deeper and used the dredgings to level the towpath edge with the piling, making the area much more mooring-friendly.

Future of the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal

We're calling on urgent support to help secure the future of the Mon & Brec, after legislation came into force that severely restricts the supply of water that feeds the canal. 

For 225 years the principal feed of water to the Mon & Brec has been from the nearby River Usk. But the changes in legislation, brought in to provide protection for the environment around the Usk, now place strict limitations on the water that can be drawn from it. This makes real the unthinkable prospect that the canal could run dry when river levels fall.  

Clearly, ensuring the canal has enough water is essential for boaters and also to sustain the numerous boating and other tourism jobs in South Wales that rely on it. The canal is an important destination that brings millions of visitors and millions of pounds into the local area. The prospect of it running dry for periods whenever river levels drop would also be disastrous for its wildlife, which after 225 years forms an important ecosystem in its own right. 

We have been working to limit the impact of the legislation of years. While we were obliged by law to apply for a licence to take (or 'abstract') water, we appealed twice against the conditions that were applied to it. Sadly, we were unable to change the decision of Natural Resources Wales (NRW) to restrict the water being drawn from the Usk and this into force towards the end of 2024. This is because the narrow legal process took no account of the impacts on the canal - despite the economic, social and environmental harm that will be caused. Consequently, we now face the prospect of insufficient water to keep the canal open in the coming months. 

The impact of the licence is already apparent after a dry winter. Unbelievably for March, we have already had to begin limiting the water that we draw from the River Usk. We're acutely aware of the possible impact on boaters and businesses that depend on the canal and have been doing as much as possible to bring this problem urgently to the attention of the Welsh Government, the UK Government and local authorities. We are also very grateful for the considerable support from local groups such as Bridge 46 to Five Locks and Preserve & Protect The Mon & Brec Canal, including multiple media interviews. 

We're working with local councils and support an online petition that one of their members has set up - you can sign it here:

  Preserve the unique character of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal for the future generations of Wales. - Petitions

When this reaches 10,000 signatures, it must be considered for debate in the Welsh Parliament, the Senedd.  

As you'd expect we are also in active dialogue with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water over whether there are any possible solutions involving additional water supply. However, the costs of setting up and maintaining 'support water' appear to be extremely expensive and beyond what the Canal & River Trust can afford to pay. We continue to argue that the financial impact of the new legislation should not fall on the Trust, and that individual boaters and businesses should not have to suffer the consequences of unpredictable water supply. 

We encourage people in the area of the canal to speak to their local politicians to highlight the importance of the canal to them, to the environment, the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park and the local economy. 

Please help us to secure the future of this beloved and beautiful canal. 

Testing times at Tardebigge

As you may know, we’re undertaking urgent works to Tardebigge Top Lock on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, after investigations revealed that the 200-year-old lock wall is in need of restoration, to keep the longest flight of locks in the UK open and available for boats.

The lock is a heritage listed asset, and the works will be done with the utmost care and hand-in-glove with the local conservation officer. This means dismantling the minimum number of historic bricks and then, once the necessary Listed Building Consent is in place, it will be expertly rebuilt reusing as many bricks as possible.

We had hoped to carry out the heritage repairs alongside other planned maintenance work on the lock flight this winter. Unfortunately, thorough investigations show that the work can’t wait, and an extensive and costly repair is required immediately. The problem was initially highlighted by boaters who were having trouble navigating the lock. This type of feedback plays a valuable part in supporting our rolling inspection programme.

Earlier this week I met up with principal engineer, Gary Ramsell, to do a deep dive into the issues, the investigations, why this type of repair is so difficult and why we’re unable to give anything other than an indicative date, around the end of August, of when we expect to be able to reopen navigation:

Ask Gary…

Hopefully you found the video above interesting? Of course, there might be other aspects of canal engineering, repair prioritisation, asset inspection or you might simply come across something on a cruise that you’d like to ask a canal engineer about!

The principal engineer in the video above, Gary Ramsell, has kindly offered to, as best he can, answer any questions you have. Just send them in, I’ll set up my tripod and Gary’s expert engineer mind will do the rest!

Lancaster Canal reopens to boats following £1.6m repair

With only weeks to go until Easter, when boating numbers start to rise, we’re excited to announce that one of the country's few coastal canals, the Lancaster, has reopened. The canal at the Grade II-Listed aqueduct at Woodplumpton breached in July last year, causing extensive damage where parts of the embankment, towpath and sections of aqueduct wingwall washed away.

The project team created a plan to rebuild the embankment, reinstate the canal towpath and the footpath underneath the aqueduct, and sensitively repair and restore the aqueduct, using original archive drawings to replace all the masonry in its original position.

The complex repair works, which cost £1.6 million, have included several measures, such as a land drain and bentonite clay liner on the canal bed, to help prevent any future occurance.

The repair has been particularly challenging as the breach was located away from local roads and required a temporary track to be built to the aqueduct, and along the bed of the drained canal, so that materials could be brought to site. The temporary access ramp, stone used for canal access and 100 tonnes of waste material, along with two porta dams, have now been removed and navigation has reopened to boaters.

Jon Horsfall, North West director, said: “We’ve been working hard on site since last summer to repair the breach and get the canal back open for boaters and towpath users as quickly as possible. Hollowforth Aqueduct is a piece of living heritage, and we’ve taken care to protect its historical aspects while repairing the damage to make it safe for the future.

“We’ve kept boaters at the forefront of our thinking as we’ve carried out these works, creating an unusual three-sided dam to allow boaters to navigate across the aqueduct before the navigation was closed for the repairs to get underway.

“Thankfully, all that hard work has paid off, the complex repairs have been completed, new measures have been put in place to prevent a breach in the future and navigation has now re-opened for boaters.”

Renowned civil engineer John Rennie designed Hollowforth Aqueduct, using an ingenious engineering solution of three barrel-shaped stone pipes, to carry the Lancaster Canal over New Mill Brook in the 1790s. John Rennie later went on to design the iconic Lune Aqueduct, near Lancaster, and also the Caen Hill Lock Flight on the Kennet & Avon Canal in Wiltshire, one of the seven wonders of the waterways.

Jon added: “The Lancaster Canal, which is extremely popular with boaters, walkers and cyclists, is over 200 years old but, like so much of our historic canal network, it has endured centuries of use and been battered by the elements, which have taken their toll. The breach and costly repairs demonstrate the scale of the challenge our charity faces in keeping canals alive.

“We would like to thank everyone, especially boaters and the local community, for their patience and support whilst these complex works have been carried out.”

Working for boaters – in numbers

With over 2,000 miles of canals and rivers, a list of all the things we’ve been doing over the last fortnight to keep navigations open would be unfeasibly long to collate, but a scan of our stoppage notifications shows that we’ve…

The above list doesn’t include any work conducted purely on towpaths, water management (which there’s always a lot of!), major reservoir projects and so on – it’s just a flavour of what we’ve been doing to help boaters keep moving on the cut!         

Maintenance, repair and restoration work this weekend

This month marks the end of our winter stoppage programme and we’ve managed to get a mountain of work done. Unfortunately, a few projects have been held up by things such as extreme weather but, rest assured, we are working very hard to complete them all as soon as possible. So below, you’ll find a list of navigations that have ongoing restrictions that may affect you if you’re planning to get out on the water this weekend:

• Bridgwater & Taunton Canal
• Chesterfield Canal
• Dudley No 2 Canal
• Huddersfield Broad Canal
• Huddersfield Narrow Canal
• Kennet & Avon Canal
• Lancaster Canal
• Leeds & Liverpool Canal
• Oxford Canal
• Ribble Link
• River Severn
• Shropshire Union Canal
• Walsall Canal
• Weaver Navigation
• Worcester & Birmingham Canal

When restrictions to navigation happen, we get them up on to our website as soon as we can – always best to have a scan before you set off. You can find out how to get stoppage notification alerts on your smartphone in this article.

If you have any questions about a specific closure, or spot an error in our system, please get in touch.

Improving stoppage notifications for boaters

Over that last few months we have been working on some changes to our navigation notices system and I wanted to tell you a bit more about that, and what’s going to be happening in the near future.

The system that we use for navigation notices is very old and the software it’s based on is no longer supported. Therefore we are updating the platform and at the same time, building in some improvements both for our boating customers and our teams who use the site for publishing the notices. 

You have probably already seen some improvements have been made to the webpage – the mapping system, changes to the search functions, improvements for mobile uses and the ability to bookmark.

The next stage will see the launch of the new administration system that is used to input the notices. It’s easier for our teams to use and we are training our teams on the system and the expectation of writing stoppage notices and the information they need to contain.   

After receiving some feedback, we have changed the notice types, and reasons, to make these clearer and concise. We are also removing a number of very old notices and standardising how navigational dimension, booking information and other information is shown on the website.

There is a final round of testing to complete and then we are expecting that the new system will go live at the beginning of May – we will confirm the date closer to the time. 

When the improved notification goes live we will be asking everyone to recheck their MyTrust preferences to make sure that you continue to receive the information that you want.

Looking to the future, later this year, we intend to add photographs to stoppage notices for the first time, which will be another significant change and improvement. Watch out for more details in the coming months!

Simpler recycling

From Monday 31 March the government’s new ‘Simpler Recycling’ legislation will come into effect, which will apply to our customer service facilities. 

We have been working with our waste contractors to ensure that as many of our sites as possible are ready to go and currently a fifth of all locations in England have received the majority of the new bins.  Deliveries are continuing and you can expect to find more sites changing over the coming weeks. Unfortunately we know there is a delay to the roll-out of the food bins, so the delivery of these is currently scheduled for mid-May.

Each bin has the relevant waste type printed on the front. We're also applying stickers to the bins to make it clear what can and can't go in each bin. These will be rolled out shortly after the new bins are delivered.

We will continue to keep you informed via the Boaters’ Update, social media and our dedicated webpage Rubbish and recycling | Boating services which now includes a list of FAQs.

We ask you to bear with us during this transition which we will get through as quickly as possible. Take a little time to get the right waste in the right bins, and let us know if you are having difficulty using a site by reporting problems to our service teams.

As a reminder, the four waste types are:

• Dry recyclables - paper, card, metal and plastics
• Glass
• Food waste (bin deliveries delayed)
• General waste

The Simpler Recycling legislation does not change the current disposal methods for waste from separator toilets. For more information please see our website Separator (composting) toilets | Canal & River Trust

What can be put in each bin:

And finally…

As you may have read, we’ve asked a Commission to review our boat licensing framework. As part of the process the Commission will want to hear the views of boaters and other stakeholders with a view on boat licensing. The survey is now live and, if you haven’t already, please do share your views. You can take the survey, and find out more, here.