Top News
Another consultation on boat licensing
The Canal & River Trust is promising a final public consultation on boat licensing, from December 2026 through to February 2027.
This follows a report published earlier this year from the independent commission, appointed in 2025, to recommend a wholesale revision on licensing.
The consultation will address boat safety, social support for boaters, navigation requirements, fair sharing of waterway space, licence fees, and how CRT's network can be managed in the future.
The trust says it wants to clarify and modernise the whole system, which dates back to the British…
31 July 2026
Read more…
Boat lift reopening promised in 2027
The Canal & River Trust says it is still aiming to reopen one caisson of the Anderton Boat Lift by May 2027, despite having to…
13 August 2026
Read more…
%20Kev%20Maslin.jpg)
Campaign cruise ends early
The Inland Waterways Association’s summer Fund Britain’s Waterways campaign cruise came to an early end at the Ellesmere Port Boat Museum on 20th July, after…
13 August 2026
Read more…
Canals cool even more in heatwaves
A new study from the University of Manchester has confirmed a long-held suspicion, that city canals can cool their immediate surroundings significantly.
An earlier study…
13 August 2026
Read more…
Thames workboats go electric
The Environment Agency has taken delivery of its first new all-electric workboat for the Thames. Blackwater Joule is an RS Pulse 63 RIB to be…
12 August 2026
Read more…
Silver lining for Whitchurch Canal Festival
As the Canal & River Trust forges ahead with its repair of the Llangollen Canal breach, the Whitchurch Waterway Trust around the corner is about…
12 August 2026
Read more…
Audlem holds boat gathering despite drought
The small canalside village of Audlem was busy over the last weekend in July, with a historic boat parade in a Shropshire Union Canal counterpart…
12 August 2026
Read more…
Flash drought on the waterways
A new term entered the lexicon of UK boaters at the end of July: ‘flash drought’, the counterpart to flash flood. A concept imported from…
12 August 2026
Read more…
CRT creates Citizen's Boater Panel
Boaters are being invited to help shape the future of boating as part of a volunteer Citizens’ Boater Panel.
The panel will advise the Canal…
12 August 2026
Read more…
New owner for Oxford wharf
The long-fought-over Jericho Wharf, on the Oxford Canal, finally has a new owner.
Oxford University's Worcester College, whose land is adjacent to the old boatyard,…
05 August 2026
Read more…
Restoration society calls for regional water strategy
With England and Wales enduring an unprecedented run of droughts, the Buckingham Canal Society has called on the government and water companies to integrate not…
05 August 2026
Read more…
