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The charity making life better by water

Working with partners

Working closely with partners is key to the successful management of our heritage and we constantly talk to local authorities, statutory agencies, voluntary groups, canal societies and stakeholders.

Arial photo of Foxton Locks

We have established an expert advisory group for heritage and this group supports us in a number of ways, including advising on historic boats, consulting on property developments and helping to review our heritage processes.

Partnership also means developing ‘tools' to help manage heritage assets more effectively. We are pioneering a number of Heritage Partnership Agreements with English Heritage and local authorities and are poised to roll out a ‘network-wide' agreement, following a recent government review of the heritage protection regime in England. This will reduce bureaucracy and save time and money. It will also offer a national model for how heritage assets in single ownership could be managed in the future.

Heritage volunteers

Volunteers make a valuable contribution to our heritage activities. Without them, we simply could not do so much to conserve the important heritage we care for. Among other things, volunteers are helping us with historical research, heritage open days, data collection and with practical work to historic structures that would otherwise not get repaired so quickly.

Heritage Counts

Read more about Heritage Counts, an annual survey of the state of England's historic environment, produced by English Heritage on behalf of the Historic Environment Forum.

Last Edited: 15 March 2023

photo of a location on the canals
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