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Lobby your Candidates

Lobby your Parliamentary candidates and encourage them to secure funding for canals and rivers in your local area.

Letter Writing Campaign

The waterways are valuable assets to our country but ongoing funding is critical if we are to protect them, as highlighted by the Fund Britain’s Waterways campaign.

With your help, our waterways may stand a chance of securing the investment they need. This is why, ahead of the General Election we are encouraging all waterways supporters to write to their candidates about the importance of waterways funding.

All parliamentary candidates have been sent a copy of our Election Statement which can be downloaded from our website. To assist you in writing to your candidates, we suggest first checking your constituency hasn’t changed name or boundary here and then finding your candidates using this page, where they are all listed.

Fund Britain’s Waterways has also issued a Press Release ahead of the election.

Example Letters

Example Letter for Constituencies with CRT Waterways

You can use this template if your local waterways are managed by CRT

(37.5KB)

Download

Example Letter for non- CRT Waterways

You can use this template if your local waterways are managed by authorities other than CRT, or adapt it if you prefer.

(37.5KB)

Download

Useful Resources

IWA General Election Statement (updated June 2024)

(23.71KB)

Download

12 Benefits of the Waterways

(90.54KB)

Download

Waterways for Today Report

Click here to download a PDF copy.

Printed copies can be purchased from our online shop here.

Parliamentary Directory

This will be updated as soon as possible after the election results are announced in July.

Waterways & Wellbeing: Valuing our Waterways

A report produced by the Canal & River Trust in November 2022.

Click here to download a PDF copy.

The Parliamentary Directory

The IWA Directory of Parliamentary Constituencies with Waterways is a useful resource aimed at helping waterway campaigners in engaging with MPs across all waterways in England, Scotland and Wales. It will be updated as soon as possible after the General Election in July.

The directory lists those Westminster, Scottish and Welsh parliamentary constituencies which have inland waterways within their boundaries, in England, Wales and Scotland, including those open to navigation, those under restoration and some of those which remain derelict. The current elected member for each constituency is shown, along with their political party. The database is fully searchable by MP name, constituency, waterway and IWA branch, enabling you to work out which MPs you need to contact for any particular stretch of waterway. This directory works well in combination with our Waterway Directory, and is updated after each general election or when by-elections have taken place.

Contact details for the relevant MPs can be obtained on the UK Government website.

We intend to add more information to future issues of the Parliamentary Directory, including a more extensive list of derelict waterways and restoration projects, so do please register for your copy and let us have any updates, additions or corrections.

How you can help

Subscribe to campaign updates

Register to receive regular updates about the #FundBritainsWaterways campaign via email, or contact [email protected] for more information.

Submit your photos

Share photos with us highlighting the state of the waterways by emailing them to [email protected]