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[The photo, above, shows founding Museum members, (from the left) Tony Lewery, Peter Froud, David Owen, Harry Arnold and Tony Hirst at the unveiling of a milepost on the Shropshire Union Canal at Ellesmere Port – the museum’s other co-founder, Edward Paget-Tomlinson was unable to be present for the occasion]

By 1976, the museum was ready for its formal opening by Sonia Rolt, widow of IWA co-founder Tom Rolt. David Owen was now elevated to IWA Manchester Branch’s President, and chair of the Museum’s Board of Management. The Island Warehouse had been secured from vandals, the top basin cleared and the Toll House restoration begun. The Museum’s exhibition had been designed by Tony Lewery in the ground floor of the Toll House. It was staffed by volunteers and initially open only at weekends. At the end of the summer, the museum closed for the season, but the restoration of the Toll House, and care for the collection of boats which had been brought to Ellesmere Port, continued. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited in November 1979.

In January 1981, the Boat Museum Trust, a partnership between NWMIN, the very supportive Ellesmere and Neston Borough Council and Cheshire County Council, was established to administer the Museum and Tony Hirst was appointed Director. This relationship between the Museum and the two local authorities was crucial in ensuring that the Museum became firmly recognised as an asset to the local community. Government funding aimed at regenerating Merseyside in 1981-82 enabled restoration of the remaining dock buildings, and there were visits from government minister Michael Heseltine and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. New exhibitions were opened and The Boat Museum, as it had become known, won a number of prestigious awards, including the Council of Europe’s Museum of Europe award jointly with the Museum du Vivant du Canal du Centre in Belgium for 1984.

[The above photo show the boat builders’ workshop at the Island Warehouse at the Museum in its early years – IWA Collection]

1990 saw the opening of the David Owen Archive (now National Waterway Archive) on the ground floor of the restored slipway workshops by the Duke of Westminster. This is now the central archive for Canal & River Trust’s historic records, and also holds some IWA archives and IWA’s historic book collection on permanent loan.

Running the museum was not always plain sailing, however, and the museum’s survival became more challenging in the late 1980s and 1990s, when competition for people’s leisure time meant less income for running and developing. One of the museum’s many challenges was getting suitable insurance cover for its wide-ranging activities, which was covered by IWA’s then expanding insurance arrangements. Tony Hirst’s success in managing the museum led him to become chairman of the Association of Independent Museums between 1990 and 1994 and this led to many other museums around the UK joining with IWA’s insurance arrangements to improve buying power with insurers. For several years, IWA’s insurance arrangements extended to cover even the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth. Tony Hirst’s work was recognised with an OBE in 1995 for Services to Museums.

[The photo above shows the short boat ‘George‘ being prepared for exhibit at the Museum – by Harry Arnold / IWA Collection]

By the late 1990s, both the Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port, and British Waterways’ Museum at Gloucester Docks were running at a deficit and their future as separate museums had become unsustainable. Increasing running costs and greater competition for visitors’ leisure time had taken their toll. In 1999, it was agreed that both museums would join together, along with BW’s small canal museum at Stoke Bruerne, under a charity The Waterways Trust (TWT), controlled by British Waterways. Tony Hirst retired as Director of the Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port at the end of 1999. TWT was then absorbed into Canal & River Trust shortly after the latter became operational in 2012, which has ensured the Museum’s long-term survival.

[The top photo shows celebrations at the official opening – by W. Broadhurst / IWA Collection]

[Photos below show another royal visitor, the Duke of Gloucester – IWA Collection; and museum exhibits ‘Gifford’ and Mossdale. Gifford was given to the museum by co-founder Edwards Paget-Tomlinson – photo by Harry Arnold]

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Ben Seal, Head of Access and Environment at Paddle UK, outlined the recent growth in paddle sport participation: an estimated 7.5 million people paddle annually across the UK, this means water sports participation now exceeds that of popular sports such as football or rugby.

Parliamentarians heard how waterways contribute significantly to both public wellbeing and the economy. Paddle UK referenced the Sport and Recreation Alliance’s “Reconomics 3.0” report, which found that water sports support around one million jobs, contribute billions to the economy as well as preventative health savings to the NHS.

However, concerns were raised about threats facing waterways and those who use them with water quality a major issue. Representatives warned that pollution and the corresponding negative publicity are discouraging participation.

The APPG also heard evidence about the positive environmental contribution volunteers and community groups make. Paddle UK gave the example of the removal of 11 tonnes of invasive floating pennywort by paddlers. This helped save navigation authorities significant costs, as well as citizen science schemes supporting water quality monitoring and public accountability.

Paul Twocock, Executive Director of Strategy and Engagement at the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, outlined the charity’s work to improve walking, wheeling, and cycling access across the UK. Around 500 miles of these routes run alongside canals, with a further 600 miles along rivers.

He also described partnership projects delivered with CRT (Canal & River Trust), Scottish Canals, and local authorities, including towpath improvements along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and lighting upgrades on Edinburgh’s Union Canal. He also discussed challenges associated with balancing shared towpath use in busy urban areas such as London’s Regent’s Canal.

Paul Twocock said:

“There’s nothing better than being alongside a canal or river for improving wellbeing, health and connecting with other people. We could open up those benefits to many more people across the UK, but as ever it’ll take some focused investment to make it happen and improvements in the way we deal with biodiversity net gain targets – that’s what we were urging parliamentarians to take action on this week.”

Accessibility was also a major theme throughout the session. Polly Maton from Disability Rights UK emphasised why it is important that waterways and water sports are accessible to disabled people, noting that access to the water’s edge can be just as important as access onto the water itself.

There was discussion of future policy opportunities, including the proposed Clean Water Bill, the Government’s forthcoming Access to Nature Green Paper, and proposals for new river walks announced in Labour’s manifesto.

The roundtable concluded with parliamentarians acknowledging both the social and environmental value of waterways, and the importance of improving access, water quality, and infrastructure to support growing participation across a wide range of activities.

Concluding, Lord German, also Honorary President of the Monmouthshire, Brecon and Abergavenny Canals Trust, said:

“Our waterways are unique and precious, delivering social, environmental and economic benefits, including regeneration, tourism, biodiversity and public wellbeing – as seen from this APPG meeting and the evidence given. I look forward to helping further this agenda”.

Photo L-R: (not all members were present at the end of the meeting) Joanna Richardson (British Marine), Baroness Jenny Jones, Charlie Norman (IWA), Ben Seal (Paddle UK), Paul Twocock (Walk Wheel Cycle Trust), Polly Maton (Disability Rights UK), Alice Gibb (Defra)

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1. Water resources

The Sustainability & Environment Group now leads in the area of water resources for IWA, but there are many aspects relevant to navigation.

• Water Abstraction

Navigation Committee has been aware for some time of the view expressed by CRT Chief Executive Campbell Robb that the forthcoming renewal of CRT’s abstraction licences issued by the Environment Agency (EA) represents the single biggest threat to the canal network. The reason for this is partly the effort and cost required to renew them, but primarily the potential risk to water supplies from onerous conditions being imposed such as reduced abstraction or the requirement for fish screening. The latter has emerged as a live issue, firstly on the Monmouthshire, Brecon & Abergavenny Canals where feeds from rivers and streams have been taken out of use in preference to the installation and maintenance of very fine screens. More recently, restricted opening hours have been imposed at Diglis Locks at the junction of the Worcester & Birmingham Canal with the River Severn, because of restrictions on the use of back-pumping without fish screening being implemented. CRT’s Head of Boating and Customer Service described this in Navigation Committee’s recent meeting as a very concerning situation which will be replicated elsewhere across the network and will impose millions of pounds of extra cost on CRT – costs which were of course not foreseen when CRT was established as a charity.

It has become apparent through these events and through consultation documents that EA appears to be protecting river environments over other aquatic environments such as canals in water abstraction, despite canals being long-standing legitimate and necessary abstractors of water which provide environmental benefits in their own right. This point was raised in Navigation Committee’s recent liaison meeting with Defra’s inland waterways team, who were sympathetic to the view and said they had been in discussion with CRT for several years. It appears that there may be an important role for IWA in pressing CRT’s case that canal water supplies need to be protected. The point was explicitly included in IWA’s response to the latest EA consultation, the Consultation on Significant Water Management Issues, which was submitted on 18^th May.

• Water Retention

A draft document setting out IWA’s proposals for improving the security of water supply for navigation on CRT’s canal system had been discussed at the last Navigation Committee meeting and the content agreed. The format was subsequently developed and the document sent to the CRT National Boating Manager with a formal response for feedback from the National Hydrology Manager and the Operations Performance Director.

• Water Transfer

Navigation Committee noted that IWA’s response to the Grand Union Canal Transfer Phase Two Public Consultation had been led by Graham Heald and submitted on 30^th March and a news item had been published. IWA called for a more comprehensive and transparent demonstration of the engineering of the canal section of the scheme to show how the water flows would be managed and controlled, both to ensure navigation within the transfer length and to maintain or preferably enhance water supplies to the wider canal network to London, Oxford, Northampton, Warwick, Leicester and Shardlow. IWA Northampton Branch also submitted a response focusing particularly on local points.

• CRT work on Water Resources

The CRT Council Boater Representatives group had a special meeting on water resources on 20^th April, attended by Sue O’Hare as IWA nominee on Council and Graham Heald by invitation.

A report was provided on CRT’s incident review of the 2025 drought. It had been found that knowledge transfer and collaboration across the organisation had worked well, together with strong leadership roles. Areas for improvement included asset reliability, data and water level and flow measuring (SCADA) limitations, and communications (where it had proved challenging to achieve the right balance between certainty and comprehensiveness). A positive outcome had been the addition of new roles in the National Hydrology team. A webpage of drought FAQs has been produced.

In terms of the outlook for 2026, the wet winter had helped to replenish reservoirs but it had been followed by a dry spring. The position of reservoir work had improved over last year with some works being finished, meaning that Toddbrook Reservoir could be refilled and brought back into use and capacity restrictions on some other reservoirs lifted.

A revised Water Resources Strategy was already overdue and still in preparation, with CRT seeking clarity from EA over the Water Resources National Framework which imposes new and unique expectations on CRT.

• Condition of the waterways

The two major breaches (the Llangollen Canal at Whitchurch and the Bridgewater Canal at Little Bollington) continue to cause disruption for both businesses and individual boaters. CRT appears to be making rapid progress at Whitchurch, but despite repeated assurances that the Bridgewater Canal Company still intends to reopen its canal by the end of 2026 there is still no visible work being carried out yet. More positive news was the reopening of the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal ahead of schedule after the repair of the collapsed bywash at Penkridge.

Other issues discussed around the network included the lack of announcements about repairs to the Anderton Boat Lift, the water level problems at New Islington Marina in Manchester, the ongoing closure of the Tame Valley Canal at Spouthouse Embankment, the problems at Keadby Lock and the Vazon sliding rail bridge on the Stainforth & Keadby Canal, the deteriorating condition of locks on the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal, the closure of the Avon Navigation for the rebuilding of Nafford Lock, the reopening of Baits Bite Lock on the River Cam and Salter’s Lode Lock on the Middle Level Navigations following work on the guillotine gates.

It is very noticeable that CRT is now talking of difficult conversations about less well-used waterways, such as the Dee Branch which it has said is effectively permanently closed. Developments elsewhere are equally concerning. The Great Ouse Boating Association views the decline in the condition of EA assets on the Great Ouse as having reached a critical point and will be highlighting this to politicians in its joint campaign cruise with Fund Britain’s Waterways in July. The Basingstoke Canal has recently lost its manager and the position will not be filled.

• Closure of CRT Customer Service Facilities (CSFs)

Following a consultation with boaters in 2022 on the minimum standard for CSFs, CRT announced that showers, toilets and laundry facilities would be closed across the network from November 2025 and invited expressions of interest from other organisations in running them. Navigation Committee was concerned at the time that the closures appeared rushed and it was unclear that the published process had been followed, and requested that CRT answer a set of questions. Since then, there has been widespread dissatisfaction and discussion on social media, and Navigation Committee received a specific enquiry highlighting the impact in areas where many boaters have small cruisers in which it is impossible to install usable facilities. A response from CRT was still awaited but a specific commitment was made in the recent Navigation Committee meeting with the National Boating Team.

OTHER POINTS

• CRT’s Independent Commission on the Future of Boat Licensing

As previously reported, a small subgroup of Navigation Committee is taking thoughts forward so that IWA is ready to respond to further consultations at the appropriate time. CRT has recently appointed a Boating Transformation Programme Manager, Alice Hamilton. Alice will lead the work on communications and engagement. The plan is for a pre-consultation with national boating organisations followed by a 3-month consultation over summer, during which CRT is hoping for face-to-face contact with boaters as well as online.

• Residential boating/mooring

The All Party Parliamentary Group for the Waterways meeting on 14^th April explored residential boating, with presentations by the Residential Boat Owners Association and the National Bargee Travellers Association. The complexity of the subject has since been highlighted in mainstream media after it became known that the Leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski, may not have paid Council Tax that was due.

• Fishing matches and visitor moorings

A CRT stoppage notice recently stated that a fishing match was to be held right across the visitor moorings on the Trent & Mersey Canal in Rugeley, which are intensively used by boaters to visit the town centre shops. The issue was resolved following contact by Helen Whitehouse with the CRT West Midlands Regional Director, but the general principle was raised by Navigation Committee in its meeting with the National Boating Team. CRT confirmed that the principle agreed by British Waterways of not allowing fishing matches to be held over designated visitor moorings still stands, and that the stoppage notice in question had used the wrong template and given an unintended message.

• Boat Safety Scheme consultation on Smoke Alarms

IWA’s response to the BSS’s consultation was submitted on 22^nd April, in support of introducing a new mandatory safety standard for the correct number of suitable working smoke alarm(s) in good condition.

• Skippers Guide to Trent Falls

The Skippers Guide to the Passage Planning and Transit of Trent Falls produced by Brian Sharples and endorsed by Navigation Committee has been published here.

• Decarbonisation of the Inland Waterways

Navigation Committee noted the adoption of the Sustainable Boating Group Policy for the Decarbonisation of the UK Inland Waterways Leisure Fleet  by trustees as an IWA policy. It has been submitted to the Department for Transport as part of their Call for Evidence on the Decarbonisation of Smaller Vessels.

• Environment Agency National Waterways Forum and National Waterways Advisory Group meeting 25^th March (attended by Sue O’Hare as IWA nominee)

The increased focus, importance and funding being given to navigation by EA is good to see, though there is still much to be done. EA’s CEO Philip Duffy has directly committed to improving the navigation service, which has resulted in new posts and transformation programmes as well as increased funding.

• Resource funding £21m for 2026/27 (up from £16m last year and £13m the year before)
• Capital funding £33m for 2026/27 (up from £25m in 2025/26)
• This is the first year of a 3-year settlement, so in principle the same amount of Grant In Aid should be received for each of the next three years, albeit subject to change because of external pressures.

Asset management is the first of the transformation programmes (Project Aurora) including harmonisation of the treatment of assets across EA and development of condition assessments harnessing data and digitisation. EA will be moving to Reliability Centred Maintenance, i.e. inspecting each asset as dictated by its reliability rather than at fixed intervals.

Long-standing work on removing sunken and abandoned boats and on compliance is now coming to fruition. A mooring strategy and a commercial strategy are in development.

A 20-year vision statement has been formally approved: “thriving, valued navigable waterways”. Next will be a 5-year strategy for the management of navigable waterways and associated assets, with four “ambitions”:

• Open, reliable waterways
• More financially sustainable
• Modern, streamlined service
• Adapt and innovate for the future

The next step is the first dedicated director, Simon Hawkins, who will lead the navigation teams, and who started on 1^st April (previously, navigation was split across directorates). However this positive news was subsequently tempered by the discovery that the Deputy Director Asset Operations Service, Lindsey Sayner, who has been chairing NWF meetings, has now been seconded to another organisation and the role has been taken over by Mark Ross, who is currently unknown to IWA.

• Navigation Committee six-monthly meeting with Defra inland waterways team – 1^st May

As previously noted, the IWA Waterways Directory and the GIS files behind the map had been provided to a new member of the Defra team who is working to understand which waterways are managed by a navigation authority and which are unregulated. The data is being used for exploring access policy and ways of increasing access to unregulated waterways.

The Defra team is still in discussion with CRT about the delivery mechanism for future grant funding and hopes to sign the grant agreement for 2027-2037 before the end of 2026. The additional £6.5m funding which was announced in February was said to have become available internally and was decided to be about the right amount to cover the additional costs because of climate change, hence it was provided as capital investment for dealing with the additional high cost of asset failures.

• Navigation Committee liaison meeting with the CRT National Boating team – 13^th May

No further details have yet become available of CRT’s management restructuring beyond the announcements about the CRT top team by Campbell Robb in a video message to volunteers on 23^rd April.

Following a request by Navigation Committee, CRT is working on reinstating the total duration of unplanned stoppages as a KPI as well as the number.

The Boater App is in development phase with MySociety and FixMyStreet, and is to be launched this year.

CRT has temporarily taken over control and management of the wharf, facilities and moorings at Sherborne Wharf in Birmingham to ensure that boaters can continue to use them after the bankruptcy of Sherborne Wharf Ltd.

Navigation Committee raised a complaint made about the substantial increase fees for events held on its property, but CRT reiterated that the policy is to cover costs and not to make a profit. Subsidy was no longer affordable.

Forthcoming meetings

• CRT National Boating Organisations meeting – Hatton, 10^th June (Roger Stocker to represent IWA)
• EA National Waterways Forum & National Waterways Advisory Group extraordinary meeting on national navigation strategy – 10^th June (Sue O’Hare to represent IWA)
• Navigation Committee online meeting – 8^th July

Sue O’Hare
Chair of Navigation Committee
25th May 2026

[The photo shows the boaters facilities at Marsworth – by Alison Smedley]

The report from the March 2026 Navigation Committee meeting is available here.

The report from the January 2026 Navigation Committee meeting is available here.

Reports from pre-2026 Navigation Committee meetings are available here.

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• Ensure the charity is carrying out its purposes for the public benefit
• Comply with the charity’s governing document and the law
• Act in the charity’s best interests
• Manage the charity’s resources responsibly
• Act with care and skill
• Ensure the charity is accountable and well managed

We are looking to complement our existing Trustees and have identified the following skillsets that we think need
strengthening:

• Experience of engaging and enabling participation of younger people with the charity
• Health and safety management
• Funding/fundraising
• Environment and sustainability
• experience of restoration projects (not just waterways)
• Marketing, membership and recruitment

We would also welcome applications from individuals to apply if they think they have experience that would be valuable to the Association beyond those mentioned above. For example, we would like younger people (18 and over) to apply who may have very relevant skills and experience for growing IWA today.

Candidates must be passionate about our campaigning: for sufficient funding for Britain’s waterways; the sustainable operation of navigations; restoration of closed waterways; and our work to make the waterways great places to live, work, travel, play, and for wildlife, nature recovery and mitigating climate change.

Most Trustee meetings are held online. However, we feel it is important to meet in person and to visit sites and events from time to time. Reasonableexpenses are covered. We are committed to improving the diversity of our Board. We encourage applications from individuals from underrepresented groups, including those of varying ages, genders and minority ethnic backgrounds. Selection will be made on merit and the ability to best serve the Association’s charitable objectives, taking into account the current skills and experience of the Board. Candidates should have sufficient time available to be able to spend at least one to two days per month on IWA business

The Application Pack contains information about the roles and responsibilities of Trustees and contact details in case you wish to discuss potentially applying. Applications will close at 12 noon on Monday 6th July 2026 (Note: extended closing date). Applicants will be asked to submit their CV, complete a skillset questionnaire, and submit a covering email rather than completing an application form.

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Route is on good paths/pavement, with minimal road crossings and mainly on a level. The towpath trail is a shared walking/cycle route and wide enough in most of the route for people and bikes. Good walking shoes/boots recommended.

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Wyvern Shipping also provided a tug, hire-boat Mallard, to tow the hopper, from which volunteers dragged the canal with grappling hooks to retrieve sunken items.  The hopper also received bags of rubbish collected by volunteers walking the towpath.  A Buckingham Canal Society workboat that was to collect any rubbish from the far side of the canal was unfortunately disabled by an underwater obstruction on the first morning, but there was little to collect.  Much appreciated refreshments at each break were provided by the tea boat that led the convoy.

The usual mix of discarded items were found, including several supermarket trolleys, six tyres, four electric hire scooters, three bicycles, an outboard motor, a plastic barrel, a motor bike frame, two folding chairs, traffic cones, a damaged and abandoned dinghy, timber and domestic rubbish.  Four sunken boats were seen during the Clean-up.  Some silting of parts of the route was noticed.

At Cosgrove, the rubbish was unloaded on Monday 13th from the work boats by contractors Smith Recycling Ltd for disposal.  Although the total load was probably about 7 tonnes, it filled two 16-tonne grab lorries due to its bulk.

There were fewer volunteers on hand than some previous years – around 18 on the first day, 12 on the second – as, fortunately, the amounts to be cleared have reduced over the years because the clearances have had a very positive effect and have encouraged other local community clean-ups in the area.

IWA Milton Keynes Branch Chairman Tim Armstrong said, “There was enough rubbish to keep the volunteers happily occupied without being overworked.  My thanks go to everyone who took part, whether organising, litter picking. working on boats or providing refreshments.” IWA Milton Keynes Branch was founded in 1976, fifty years ago.  Its first Clean-up is believed to have taken place in 1977.  In following years, one-day Clean-ups were staged irregularly at spot locations in Milton Keynes, until 1997, when they were expanded to become highly organised two- or three-day yearly or twice-yearly events.  The Clean-ups help to keep the city’s stretch of the Grand Union Canal safe and attractive for all users afloat and ashore, but it is sad that some people still treat the canal and its surroundings as a convenient rubbish dump.

[The main photo shows a hopper and tug at Bridge 71b – by Pete Bickers]

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