Campaigning for the waterways

Hundreds of miles of waterways – along with their unique heritage and habitats – are currently starved of sufficient funding, and rely on constant lobbying by us to safeguard their future.

It is vitally important that publicly-owned waterways continue to receive an adequate level of funding from government.

This includes the 2000 miles managed by Canal & River Trust, the 630 miles run by the Environment Agency and those operated by Scottish Canals.

With access to towpaths and river paths being free, waterways are ideal for people to use for walking, boating, jogging, cycling, canoeing, fishing, paddleboarding, and making journeys to work or for shopping.

Inland waterways benefit everyone including improved health and wellbeing through opportunities for holidays, exercise and recreation. There are also financial benefits to local economies through tourism, employment and regeneration.

IWA is co-leading a campaign supported by over one hundred other organisations from the inland waterways and beyond to convince Government to better fund our inland waterways.  This is IWA’s top campaign, as it is essential for the survival of the waterways as we know them today.

[The photo shows narrow boat Euclid in front of the Houses of Parliament on a campaign cruise in November 2023 – by Kev Maslin, Chasing the Boats]

We want boating on canals and rivers to be more sustainable and – even though the current overall contribution to UK carbon emissions is very small – we want to help reduce emissions on the waterways.

We are campaigning for:

• 300 charging points
• More dredging
• Biofuels
• Further technologies