IWA is the only organisation actively campaigning across all waterways to protect and preserve their unique heritage. We also want to ensure there is better recognition of the living waterway heritage such as skills and techniques. We are not asking for the waterways to become a museum. In fact, we want the very opposite. The waterways network needs to continue to be a usable and valuable asset now and into the future. All we are asking is that its history is protected and included in development plans rather than being removed.

IWA aims to encourage a greater understanding of the overall significance of waterways heritage. 

Everyone who spends time on or by our waterways knows it is impossible to ignore the living history at our fingertips. From towering aqueducts to 200-year-old mileposts, gruelling lock flights to gloomy tunnels, they all have a story to tell about the way our canals came about and how they have continued to be used throughout the centuries. We are keen to see these links to our past preserved for generations to come