Boats upsetting birds

CANAL & RIVER TRUST is so worried about passing boats upsetting the nests of water birds on Limehouse Cut that money is being spent on installing over 100 yards of reed beds.

Supporting the planting is Land & Water, giving £6,000 in materials and manpower to install the reed beds, that will transform the waterway into 'a haven for water birds'.

Menace to boating

The reed beds, that are such a menace to boating as they eventually take over the whole of the waterway, as many who have cruised the recently opened Droitwich Canal will testify, will be planted along the Cut at Bow Common Lane and South towards Limehouse Basin.

It is stated that the reed beds are particularly needed as the waterway has metal piling with the waves caused by passing boats bouncing back off the walls and able to overturn or flood the nests of birds which have chosen to make their homes on the canal.

The reeds will be planted on gabion baskets, that alas, as on the Rochdale Canal, break away and get fast around prop shafts.