Repairing waterways across England and Wales

The Canal & River Trust will carry out a £45.1 million program of repairs on waterways across England & Wales this winter.

These works include replacing lock gates, dredging to ensure the water is deep enough for boats, and carrying out a host of tasks to keep the 200-year old network open and help ensure its resilience to climate change.

Despite the Trust forecasting a reduction of income of around 10% (£20 million) due to the pandemic, they have been able to prioritize spending to maintain a full winter works program of 128 large-scale repairs across 50 canal and river navigations.

The Trust maintains a dredging program to ensure the waterways are suitable for navigation, as well as for environmental reasons.

This winter, dredging is being carried out on a number of canals including the Upper Peak Forest, Ashby, Bridgwater & Taunton, Caldon, Chesterfield, and Northern Reaches of the Lancaster.

Sections of the Rivers Ouse and Severn, Gloucester Docks, and Keadby and West Stockwith on the Trent will also be dredged, as well as Pymmes Brook in East London.

Additionally, a series of feeder dredging projects are being carried out to improve water flow at Shell Brook, Radcliffe, Boslet and Seend, with another three locations to be confirmed.