Commenting on this latest breach, Michael Haig, chair of Shrewsbury & North Wales branch of The Inland Waterways Association, said:
“As one of the most popular and heavily used canals on the entire network, the Llangollen Canal has a special place in the hearts of thousands of visitors from both this country and overseas. It also supports businesses, recreation and wellbeing along its 49-mile length, and beyond, with numerous holiday boat hire operators on neighbouring waterways also adding to visitor numbers.
“That’s why, although we appreciate the engineering complexities of repairing the breach itself, we’re calling for multi-agency action to restore full navigation to as much of the canal as possible, including downstream of the breach, so that the waterway can continue to bring economic, social, health and wellbeing benefits to the many communities along its predominantly rural length. For the moment, thanks are certainly due to all who acted so quickly and professionally in what were clearly frightening scenes.”
The Llangollen canal forms part of national water infrastructure. Each failure shuts down the connected system resulting in water supply disruption and harms local economies and in this most recent case, leaves people homeless.
This is why this year IWA has mapped the risks across our 5,000-mile network, and it is clear these risks are growing.
[Photo of the breach site by Jim Forkin]
