British Waterways Press Update

17 September 2009

The latest round up of stories for the waterways press.

Waterways Press Update – September 2009

CONTENTS

1. State of the Waterways Heritage Report
2. Waterway boundaries in England & Wales
3. WaterWatch
4. Winter stoppage programme
5. BW workboat renumbering
6. Freight through Three Mills Lock

1. State of the Waterways Heritage Report
BW is the guardian of a valuable collection of industrial heritage – including 2,756 listed buildings (the third largest collection in the UK). Progress made in managing, maintaining and securing the future of this historic estate is set out in BW’s latest State of the Waterways Heritage Report.

Highlights in the annual review include nomination and subsequent acceptance of Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and its adjoining sections of the Llangollen Canal as a World Heritage Site. BW is believed to be one of just two public bodies to have a building at risk campaign (the other being the Ministry of Defence), with further progress made during the year on reducing the number of buildings at risk. The Report states that there are currently 35 buildings on ‘at risk’ registers – down from 125 four years ago. Of the 35, 11 are fully repaired and awaiting removal from local authority registers.

There was an increase in the number of heritage volunteers working with BW in 2008/09, and the report gives a positive commitment for volunteers to further help BW with a range of heritage activities.

During the year, independent experts from canal societies and other groups were represented on the heritage sub-group of the British Waterways Advisory Forum. Volunteers contributed advice and guidance regarding BW’s fleet of heritage boats whilst practical work was also carried out by voluntary groups; notably on the Droitwich Canal restoration, at Brimscombe Port, on the Grantham Canal (where Grantham Canal Restoration Society raised money and engaged in planning the rebuilding of Lock 18) and on the Lancaster Canal where the Lancaster Canal Trust repaired the scheduled Hincaster Horse-path under a partnership scheme with BW and English Heritage.

On the Rochdale Canal, Groundwork Oldham, with local volunteers and Rochdale Canal Trust members repaired the listed Coppy Bridge. In Yorkshire, students from Craven College cleared vegetation and carried out repairs to Riddlesden lime-kilns and in Chester the Chester Canals Trust carried out heritage recording of artefacts at Taylor’s Yard.

2. Waterway boundaries in England & Wales
Following the formal boundary consultation that took place from May to July, the new waterway boundaries for the 11 waterway units in England and Wales that go live on 2 November have now been confirmed.

In addition, the Kennet & Avon Waterway will manage both the Kennet & Avon and Bridgewater & Taunton canals.

An official waterways map showing all the boundary lines and offices will be published in due course.

3. WaterWatch
Winter is the key time of year for BW’s reservoirs to replenish and despite only 78% of the long term rainfall last winter, water-shortage related restrictions have largely been avoided this summer boating season.

The drier winter was compounded by further lower levels of rainfall in spring 2009, particularly in northern England, whilst a warm start to the main boating season increased boating demands for water and led to a relatively rapid drawdown of a number of BW reservoirs through April, May and June.

A mix of day to day monitoring, computer forecasting of flows and investment in water management together with unseasonably high rainfall in July means that the risk to navigation due to insufficient water resources is now very low for the rest of the year.

4. Winter stoppage programme
More than £28m of canal improvements and major engineering works will be undertaken as part of this year’s engineering programme. This will include replacing almost 200 lock gate leaves as well as other major works such as a £1m refurbishment of the Wilmcote Lock Flight on the South Stratford between November and March, essential engineering works to the summit reservoirs on the Pennines and the ongoing £2.5m repairs to Vale Royal Lock on the River Weaver.

A draft copy of this winter’s BW Stoppage Programme is now available as excel and pdf downloads from www.waterscape.com/stoppages. During September details will be converted into the usual map format and integrated with the search facility on the waterscape website.

5. BW workboat renumbering
BW’s nationwide fleet of 600 workboats are currently being reissued with boat index numbers. The process, which will be complete by mid 2010 will remove any anomalies in the current index numbering whilst improved centrally held records will ensure the fleet’s vigorous compliance with BSS requirements.

The new process removes the need for BW to issue license exemption certificates for each of its craft as compliance with BSS regulations can be readily shown through the centrally held records.

Each BW workboat will have an index number in the 4,000,000 series. This will cover every item of floating plant including dumb hoppers (which are not covered by the BSS) and which were not often (if ever) currently fitted with license exemption certificates.

• A picture of the new boat index plates is available on request from the BW press office

6. Freight through Three Mills Lock
The first three barges each containing approximately 200 tonnes of filter cake (the by-product of decontaminating the soil in the Olympic Park) were locked-out of Three Mills Lock on 17 September on route to disposal in Essex.

For the immediate future the Green Barge Company, under contract from BAM Nuttall, is expecting to use the lock to remove up to 3,000 tonnes of filter cake per week.

Kim Milnes, BW’s sustainable transport manager comments: “Interest remains strong from other Olympic contractors who are considering using the lock to transport materials as diverse as aggregates to seating for the stadiums. We hope further traffic will shortly follow to join this new venture by Green Barge Company and the already existing waste traffic being transported by Bennett’s Barges Ltd for Veolia Ltd.”

• A picture of the barges passing through Three Mills Lock is available on request from the BW press office