Mowing over 2,000 miles

Our canals, rivers and towpaths are rich and green, particularly at this time of year, with wildflowers blooming, trees budding, and grass growing along our verdant banks. Yet this all needs to be carefully managed, to allow boaters and visitors to enjoy our waterways while enabling wildlife to flourish.

The cost of vegetation management comes only second to our engineering programme. And every year your gifts make a significant contribution helping to keep our canals trim, safe, beautiful and open to everyone. With a 2,000-mile-long ‘garden’ to tend to, it’s important we maintain our towpaths and navigation channels, making sure trees, hedges, reeds, and long grass are well looked after and don’t impede boaters or walkers, paddlers or anglers.

But where to mow. Or where not to mow? That is the question. And the answer is keeping people safe where we need to, and wildlife thriving where we can.

As you can see from this map, we publish exactly where and how we mow, every year, right across every mile of our network.

It’s especially important to cut the grass where people need to safely step on and off their boats. That’s why we cut the grass approaching and around our locks, up to nine times every summer. It’s just as important to keep grass low close to narrow bridge, or tunnels openings, or on blind canal corners where boaters need to see approaching craft.

We also keep the grass low on high embankments or around our aqueducts so engineers can easily monitor any changes in their condition. Another reason to keep the grass in check is high towpath footfall. With around 10 million people visiting canals every fortnight, it’s important to let walkers, cyclists, anglers and joggers use our most popular towpaths unimpeded.

Yet we only cut just enough to keep people safe. Even our busiest canals have wilder edges or offsides (the bank opposite the towpath), where we let nature run wild. We know our canals play a vital role connecting people to the nature around them and offering green corridors where plants and wildlife can grow and thrive.

Thanks to your passion and support, we’re careful to ensure that our grasslands and wildflowers still attract bees, butterflies, hoverflies, and dragonflies to the water. And our reedbeds, trees, and hedgerows provide safe havens for birds, mice, hedgehogs, badgers, frogs, grass snakes, fish and otters.

“It’s a delicate balance between protecting people and encouraging biodiversity,” Angie Parkinson-Green, our framework contracts manager, explains. “While we’re always mindful of the nature, the safety of our boaters and visitors is vital. That’s why last year, after consulting with boaters, stakeholders and ecologists, we took the decision to increase our mowing regimen around well-trodden sites like locks, bridges and moorings. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with fewer issues, accidents and incidents.

At the same time, we’re doing a lot to improve biodiversity,” Angie says. “We’re installing coir rolls along our banks, restricting grass cutting around protected nesting sites, and creating biodiversity buffers to help protect sensitive habitats and endangered or at-risk species.”

By funding careful and considered management of vegetation your donations are helping to keep our canals safe, vibrant, and full of life. Together, we’ll continue to safeguard these beautiful green spaces for people and keep them alive and thriving with wildlife this spring and summer, and for many more to come.