Boaters race against clock as drained canals close

Boaters are racing against the clock to beat canal closures as waterways run dry due to extreme heat.

Some channels connecting large parts of the Midlands and the North of England have lost several inches of water, leaving narrowboats stuck and those already on the canals facing being stranded miles from home for weeks on end.

Campaigner George Seward said he was getting up at 05:00 BST and cruising until dark to get his narrowboat through the Atherstone flight of locks, after a sudden closure was announced.

"They're unlikely to be open again for many weeks and I want to make sure I get through that flight so I can get my boat safely home," he said.

The locks on the Coventry Canal in Warwickshire are due to shut on Tuesday morning, with last entry on Monday afternoon, as the Canal and River Trust (CRT) tries to conserve dwindling supplies.

For Seward, who is Midlands regional chair of the Association of Waterways Cruising Clubs, the deadline is the difference between getting his boat home to Hinckley in Leicestershire and being potentially marooned for an unspecified period.

He was in Norbury on the Shropshire Union Canal when he spoke to the BBC and estimated several hundred of boaters were weighing up similar calculations.

"[It is] 30-something miles long and it's already about eight inches down and that's a huge amount of water," he said.

"The Canal and River Trust are doing their best to stem those losses but the effect it has is that people will not be able to travel on an arterial route."

It comes after drought was declared across seven areas of England this week, following four heatwaves and one of the driest spells this century.

The BBC also reported canal users across the Midlands feared the situation was only going to get worse, with the CRT and the government both urged to do more.

Notable restrictions and closures currently affecting waterways include:

• Atherstone Lock Flight, Warwickshire
• Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, from Lock 22 at Lapworth to Stratford-upon-Avon
• Grand Union Canal at Hatton Lock Flight, Warwick, between locks 46 and 37
• Caldon Canal between Etruria and Cheddleton, Staffordshire
• Trent and Mersey Canal at several points, including between Meaford Top Lock and Yard Lock, Stone
• Grand Union Canal between Camp Hill Top Lock, Birmingham, and Knowle Top Lock
• Wolverhampton Lock Flight
• Rushall Lock Flight, Walsall
• Ryders Green Lock Flight, West Bromwich

Not all closures are due to weather conditions, with some repair work making the situation even more difficult.

Seward is also on the steering group of Fund Britain's Waterways, which wants a parliamentary debate on the future of the network.

He was part of a 15-boat campaign cruise heading for Preston and Lancaster this year, which he said had been "thwarted completely by lock closures, failed locks, droughts and failed assets".

Describing his passion for boating as "all consuming", he has been on the water since he was 10 and lived through the droughts of 1975 and 1976.

"The canal infrastructure is in a far worse state than it was in the 70s and that's the problem," he explained.

"The locks leak like a sieve more or less or all over the place.

"Over the last 10 days I've seriously thought about the possibility of selling my boat, which I've had for 25 years, because I just fear for the long-term sustainability of the canal system."

Among those temporarily stuck is Nici Griffin, a continuous cruiser who runs the Three Sheep Cheese Boat with her partner and describes herself as a floating cheesemonger.

The 53-year-old spoke as she was on the Grand Union at Hatton, outside Warwick, trying to reach Birmingham.

"We're trying to get ahead of the closures they are putting in," she said.

"We've hit a speed bump this morning in that there has now been a bit of a damage on one of the locks here.

"So not only are we fighting low water levels, we're also fighting a stoppage because of a repair being needed."

Asked whether she would make it, Griffin said: "How long is a piece of string?

"We wouldn't try if we didn't think we could make it and we are quite conscious of not unnecessarily wasting water so we wouldn't go if we thought we were going to get stuck halfway."

Griffin added it was sad to see closures for a second summer running, but she stopped short of blaming maintenance issues alone, pointing to boaters who had hit gates or left lock paddles open.

"It's a two-way street," she continued.

"If we want the Canal and River Trust to be able to take care of us we have got to take care of the structure as well.

"It's over 200 years old. Everyone needs to play their part."

In Tamworth, Alan Berry's narrowboat is moored at the bottom of his garden on the Coventry Canal.

He said the water was now nearly 10 inches down and his boat was sitting on the bottom unable to move, believing the CRT was "stuck between a rock and a hard place" due to a lack of funds and an inability to control the weather.

"They're closing [the locks] to restrict usage and stop the water supply from getting even lower because as well as boaters they have an obligation to the wildlife," he said.

"If you used all of the water the fish wouldn't be able to survive. It's probably too little too late because it's been very sudden."

Christine Howles from the Lichfield and Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust said she was pressing ahead with the Brownhills Canal Festival in the third weekend of August.

"We've been preparing this for many months and these things always come up to try us," she said.

"The difficulty is the boats trying to get from further afield and whether there's stoppages further out which will prevent them from getting to us."

Howles, who is not a boater but describes herself as a canal lover, said both existing canals and those being restored needed protection.

"So many people get so much out of them," she said. "Our partially restored Lichfield canal has so many people walking on the towpaths and enjoying it."

In a statement, the CRT said the summer's hot weather and lack of rain meant the charity was doing all it could to save water and move what was available to where it was needed.

"We apologise for the disruption and thank you for your patience during these periods," a spokesperson said.

The charity added that with no meaningful rain forecast it was putting measures in place to conserve water, including restricting lock usage in some instances.

"The situation with low flows can be exacerbated because of lock misuse, plus the ageing nature of the canal network, where water naturally seeps away from the canal," the statement continued.

"We're targeting water-saving repairs and maintenance this summer to reduce leakage and better manage water flow - it's a task that continues year-round."

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the government was providing more than £453m to the CRT and had agreed to extend support until 2037.

The Environment Agency is meanwhile topping up the River Severn, which about six million people rely on for drinking water, and rescuing fish daily from dried up watercourses including the River Teme and the River Onny in Shropshire.

Elsewhere, other routes including the Bottom Barge Lock at Stourport Basins in Worcestershire are closed for repair works.

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