Eleven waterways closed!

Published: Wednesday, 18 July 2018

ANYONE setting out on a cruise with the holiday season upon us, should take great care and check that their planned route is available, with eleven waterways now closed.

One of our regular contributors told us that whilst at Bugsworth Basin he was told by a volunteer at the Canal & River Trust stand that the trust had been brought into being to take over the mess that British Waterways had made of looking after the canals, and that the trust was now making a better job of it! 

That is what is now known as fake news.

For the canals are in a worst state that they have ever been in with canal after canal being shut down, making it extremely difficult for boaters to actually use them and hire companies in a quandary as to where to send their customers. Here is the list:

Four breached

Middlewich branch on the Shropshire Union Canal
Macclesfield Canal
Wyrley and Essington Canal
Leeds & Liverpool Canal (Leigh to Liverpool section)

Three with damaged locks:

Peak Forest Canal
Trent & Mersey Canal
Huddersfield Narrow Canal

Three with no water:

Leeds & Liverpool canal (Wigan to Leeds section, to be locked during August)
Rochdale Canal (closed at Tuel Lock intermittently)
Glasson Branch on the Lancaster Canal

One with a broken pump:

Grand Union Canal

Our Keith Gudgin advises:

"A few days from the school holidays and the whole of the North West is cut off from the network.

"I recommend that all boaters check every day's planned route before untying and moving off each morning as with the way that the system is falling apart they may not get very far, or even—get back!"