Calls to limit boat traffic to protect wildlife on restored Welsh canal

[Puffling]

Conservationists are calling for only horse-drawn barges to journey along a section of the Montgomery canal when it is reopened, to protect rare aquatic plants and wildlife on the rewilded waterway.

 

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[LadyG]

Maybe do what they do on the Chesterfield, keep water levels marginal so you have to pole the boats. No noisy ICE and only electric motors.

I don't think horses are practical for many these days, a trip boat would be fine.

[magnetman]

I bet the wildlife just love the cyclists roaring along their little rewilded sections of towpath. 

What you need to do is ban use of towpath and let the animals have it. A horse is going to be terrible !

I can't take anyone with the name IOLO seriously. 

[GUMPY]

Remember this is the canal where in order to restore part of it which was an SSSI  a new habitat was created to move the SSSI and the conservationists said thank you and just enlarged the SSSI to include the new bit. Thus making it a waste of time and leaving all the problems for restoration in place.

[rusty69]

I guess this was all mentioned as part of the bid to secure part of the government levelling Up Fund by the County Council
If the funding was achieved on that basis, I can't see what the problem is.

 

How is a similar situation handled on the Rochdale? 

 

I'm gonna set up a horsey stable at the end of the canal and hire out horses so people can tow their own boats.

[Quattrodave]

The conservationists needn't worry CaRT will have frittered the £14 million on blue signs, more managers & bonuses before the canal opens...

Edited February 25, 2023 by Quattrodave

[magnetman]

You could charge people a pony each way. 

@rusty69

[rusty69]

2 minutes ago, magnetman said:

You could charge people a pony each way. 

@rusty69

I was gonna get @tree monkey involved so I can charge more. 

[tree monkey]

21 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I was gonna get @tree monkey involved so I can charge more. 

Not sure I wanna put my name to rusty boats

 

[MtB]

More seriously though, this IS the future for the canals in my opinion. 

 

The conservation lobby has a ludicrous degree of influence now and goes from strength to strength. Fully excluding powered boats from under-used canals is an obvious next campaign and this is the second example. The first being their success is preventing the restoration of the Greywell Tunnel on the Basingstoke because a common-as-muck bat lives in it. There are probably less obvious examples too. 

 

Stand by for more of this with support from CRT as it suits them just fine to no longer have to maintain the waterway in a condition suitable for navigation. 

[Puffling]

2 hours ago, rusty69 said:

[...]

I'm gonna set up a horsey stable at the end of the canal and hire out horses so people can tow their own boats.

CRT mention that the towpath is too narrow for horses to be used safely.

 

There must be plenty of benefit claimants in the area, though? My suggestion is to make Universal Credit recipients perform the role of human tugs (three or four to a rope) for free haulage along the section of the canal in question. One day working on the tug team absolves you from needing to show a week of applying for jobs when you attend your JobCentre.

 

The team spirit of hauling boats on a rope would be an excellent motivation for the jobless. To make it more fun, CRT would offer a free blue t-shirt to all participants with their logo and a choice of Happy to pull you off, Here's one I tugged earlier or Waterway to earn a living slogans.

 

Repeat attendees would earn badges to pin on their shirts, with six levels of... etc. etc.

[magnetman]

Badges are definitely good. 

 

Water is wet!

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, MtB said:

More seriously though, this IS the future for the canals in my opinion. 

 

The conservation lobby has a ludicrous degree of influence now and goes from strength to strength. Fully excluding powered boats from under-used canals is an obvious next campaign and this is the second example. The first being their success is preventing the restoration of the Greywell Tunnel on the Basingstoke because a common-as-muck bat lives in it. There are probably less obvious examples too. 

 

Stand by for more of this with support from CRT as it suits them just fine to no longer have to maintain the waterway in a condition suitable for navigation. 

Not that new, I remember going to the Crick boat show about 18 years ago and the conservation officer (CRT/BW) banned a whole length of moorings because of water voles. Likewise a rally up the Basingstoke where the ranger did the same thing because of some flowers

[magnetman]

K&A water vole friendly canal bank protection. That was in the 90s. 

[ditchcrawler]

10 minutes ago, magnetman said:

K&A water vole friendly canal bank protection. That was in the 90s. 

Shackerstone comes to mind as well

[Ronaldo47]

4 hours ago, rusty69 said:

 

 

I'm gonna set up a horsey stable at the end of the canal and hire out horses so people can tow their own boats.

I seem to remember a few years ago that objections from some animal rights activists lead to withdrawal of a horse-drawn canal boat service and its relocation elsewhere. 

Edited February 25, 2023 by Ronaldo47

[magnetman]

23 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

I seem to remember a few years ago that objections from some animal rights activists lead to withdrawal of a horse-drawn canal boat service and its relocation elsewhere. 

Was that the one on the River Wey?

[Ronaldo47]

That's the one. Something about it being unfair on the horse to make it work I think. 

[David Mack]

26 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

I seem to remember a few years ago that objections from some animal rights activists lead to withdrawal of a horse-drawn canal boat service and its relocation elsewhere. 

Iona at Godalming, now relocated to the Grand Western Canal at Tiverton. I don't think it was so much official objections as social media ranting from idiots who are too thick to realise that horsepower was once widely used for all sorts of tasks, and that unlike their forebears, modern boat horses get a very comfortable life.

[Midnight]

I suggest the conservationists should be made to pull the boats. Then they would know how the horse felt!

[Athy]

44 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Iona at Godalming, now relocated to the Grand Western Canal at Tiverton. I don't think it was so much official objections as social media ranting from idiots who are too thick to realise that horsepower was once widely used for all sorts of tasks, and that unlike their forebears, modern boat horses get a very comfortable life.

Absolutely.

I once took a school trip on 'Iona'. I was teaching history to the Common Entrance class (Year Eight) and we had a day out during which we went round a working watermill and travelled on the trip boat. It was an advantage of teaching that I got paid to do things I enjoyed.

[cuthound]

6 hours ago, MtB said:

More seriously though, this IS the future for the canals in my opinion. 

 

The conservation lobby has a ludicrous degree of influence now and goes from strength to strength. Fully excluding powered boats from under-used canals is an obvious next campaign and this is the second example. The first being their success is preventing the restoration of the Greywell Tunnel on the Basingstoke because a common-as-muck bat lives in it. There are probably less obvious examples too. 

 

Stand by for more of this with support from CRT as it suits them just fine to no longer have to maintain the waterway in a condition suitable for navigation. 

 

Last time I went up the Basingstoke you couldn't reach Greywell because of a lanslip at St John's. Hs it been cleared now?

[Ronaldo47]

In the 1970's I remember going through a couple of tunnels that were the home to bats, and this was mentioned in the Nicholson guides. The bats never seemed to be bothered by our boats, even when we slowed down to get a better look.

 

I did try taking photos of them hanging upside-down from the tunnel roof,  but couldn't get the exposure right using flash with the slow colour films of that era in my film camera with manual exposure control.   On one occasion when we moored up near the tunnel mouth for a cuppa, you could see the bats coming out into the daylight and feeding on the insects that were swarming over the water near the tunnel mouth in the afternoon sunshine.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Ronaldo47
typos

[Jon57]

6 hours ago, magnetman said:

Badges are definitely good. 

 

Water is wet!

Wet badger even better.

[Jerra]

I wouldn't have thought horse drawn boats would be good for wildlife.   Vegetation would need to be kept down and regularly disturbed, unlike a motor powered boat gliding past.