Canals and River Trust: 'If we lose the canals, we are homeless'

[Chris Lowe]

BBC News this morning https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-66260233

[matty40s]

It wont work when Teresa Coffey thinks that great progress is flinging shit  into the rivers and beaches of the country.

[MtB]

28 minutes ago, matty40s said:

It wont work when Teresa Coffey thinks that great progress is flinging shit  into the rivers and beaches of the country.

 

She has a surprisingly similar name to that nice Thérèse Coffey, our Secretary of State for the Environment.\

 

 

 

 

 

 

[matty40s]

Just because its spelt posh doesnt make Treesa Cofferdam any more trustworthy or good.

[Paul C]

Bit of a sensationalist headline. Never mind.

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Paul C said:

Bit of a sensationalist headline. Never mind.

 

Yes I thought so too. 

 

"Is it worth spending several tens of millions extra a year so a handful of people can continue living on their boats?", the average reader might be asking themselves.

 

 

[GUMPY]

They need to wake up and smell the coffee and get out now whilst they still can 😱

[LadyG]

It's lazy journalism.

[Paul C]

They could continue living in their boats…..on one of the canals not closed, or maybe a river.

[Chris Lowe]

It looked typical journalist rubbish to me & certainly an attention grabbing headline.

[IanD]

So according to the article the canals support 80000 jobs and contribute £1.5B/year to the economy.

 

Meanwhile the government is crowing about the JLR battery factory generating 4000 jobs "and thousands more in the supply chain" -- so lets add the same again to get 8000 total -- and is said to be subsidising this development to the tune of £500M, and how this is good value for money and great news for the UK.

 

So on the same basis, didn't they ought to be willing to kick in £5B to support the canals with 10x the job count? Without eating into the capital, if this yielded even 3% a year that's £150M a year -- which funnily enough is the existing grant plus an extra £100M/yr to solve the maintenance backlog.

 

I'm sure some people will say this is ridiculous -- but why is it? For starters the canals are likely to last a damn sight longer than a battery factory, assuming they don't wither away die to lack of maintenance...

[Tonka]

11 minutes ago, IanD said:

So according to the article the canals support 80000 jobs and contribute £1.5B/year to the economy.

 

Meanwhile the government is crowing about the JLR battery factory generating 4000 jobs "and thousands more in the supply chain" -- so lets add the same again to get 8000 total -- and is said to be subsidising this development to the tune of £500M, and how this is good value for money and great news for the UK.

 

So on the same basis, didn't they ought to be willing to kick in £5B to support the canals with 10x the job count? Without eating into the capital, if this yielded even 3% a year that's £150M a year -- which funnily enough is the existing grant plus an extra £100M/yr to solve the maintenance backlog.

 

I'm sure some people will say this is ridiculous -- but why is it? For starters the canals are likely to last a damn sight longer than a battery factory, assuming they don't wither away die to lack of maintenance...

It's political.  Batteries help with their net zero policy.  Batteries are the future. Batteries make headlines as they got a lot of stick over the failure of Britishvolt. 

 

[David Mack]

16 minutes ago, IanD said:

So on the same basis, didn't they ought to be willing to kick in £5B to support the canals with 10x the job count?

Lots of other areas of activity contribute to jobs and the economy, but don't all get government help. 

[IanD]

7 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Lots of other areas of activity contribute to jobs and the economy, but don't all get government help. 

You do realise that my post wasn't *entirely* serious? 🙂

 

But it does point out another way that the government policy -- nay, dogma -- to reduce CART funding makes little sense, quite apart from the national infrastructure/heritage/health/leisure points of view.

 

And canals aren't the only things suffering cuts from a government that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing... 😞

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/08/funding-cuts-leave-englands-national-parks-facing-existential-crisis

 

11 minutes ago, Tonka said:

It's political.  Batteries help with their net zero policy.  Batteries are the future. Batteries make headlines as they got a lot of stick over the failure of Britishvolt. 

 

My point precisely...

Edited July 21, 2023 by IanD

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

So according to the article the canals support 80000 jobs and contribute £1.5B/year to the economy.

 

Meanwhile the government is crowing about the JLR battery factory generating 4000 jobs "and thousands more in the supply chain" -- so lets add the same again to get 8000 total -- and is said to be subsidising this development to the tune of £500M, and how this is good value for money and great news for the UK.

 

So on the same basis, didn't they ought to be willing to kick in £5B to support the canals with 10x the job count? Without eating into the capital, if this yielded even 3% a year that's £150M a year -- which funnily enough is the existing grant plus an extra £100M/yr to solve the maintenance backlog.

 

I'm sure some people will say this is ridiculous -- but why is it? For starters the canals are likely to last a damn sight longer than a battery factory, assuming they don't wither away die to lack of maintenance...

When companies are begging for government aid they always bump up the figures, time scales, employment, contribution to GDP. 

[magnetman]

In a way the argument could be taken too simply by some people. 

 

Canals working for canal boats = loads of jobs massive income generated everyone happy. 

 

Canals not working for canal boats = job losses reduction in income and nobody happy. 

 

 

Canals are actually just water on top of land. Freeing up this land for other uses such as housing, transport routes, pleasure parks and other schemes could turn out to be a net benefit to society. It could be a bigger benefit than having nackered old ditches with wobbly locks. 

 

Accessibility is important. 

 

The subject must surely be land use rather than being fixated on the actual waterways. Population is increasing all the time in this country and this is not projected to slow down. Pressure on land use can only increase. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Heartland]

Instead of building a battery factory in Somerset why not build it on the Griff Arm in Coventry and supply it entirely by canal boat with interchange sidings on the Coventry and Nuneaton line. 

 

 

[IanD]

54 minutes ago, magnetman said:

In a way the argument could be taken too simply by some people. 

 

Canals working for canal boats = loads of jobs massive income generated everyone happy. 

 

Canals not working for canal boats = job losses reduction in income and nobody happy. 

 

 

Canals are actually just water on top of land. Freeing up this land for other uses such as housing, transport routes, pleasure parks and other schemes could turn out to be a net benefit to society. It could be a bigger benefit than having nackered old ditches with wobbly locks. 

 

Accessibility is important. 

 

The subject must surely be land use rather than being fixated on the actual waterways. Population is increasing all the time in this country and this is not projected to slow down. Pressure on land use can only increase. 

 

 

As usual, actual numbers are much more convincing than handwaving arguments... 😉

 

The area of a typical UK canal (half a chain wide) is about 4 acres for a 1 mile length, so if they were all used for housing that would be something like 8000 acres, or 3000 hectares in new money. Typical housing density in brownfield sites is about 40 houses per hectare, so about 120000 houses could be fitted in if every UK canal was converted instantly.

 

That sounds like a lot, but it's about half the number of new houses built in the UK every year -- and this number is set by what the housebuilders want to build, not available land for which they hold plenty in "land banks".

 

So in return for destroying a valued part of our heritage, we'd gain -- well, pretty much nothing... 😞

 

The canals are not in any way shape or form a solution to the UK housing problem, whether filling them with boats or filling them in...

Edited July 21, 2023 by IanD

[magnetman]

I didn't say they were all to be used for housing. This would obviously be regional and you would find much higher density in urban areas for example. 

 

There are a lot of other uses which publicly owned land can be put to which don't include heavy boats and people living there because it is cheap. 

 

 

[SLC]

Poor article imho. The economic argument is one aspect but the social and mental health benefits save the NHS over a billion. In the meantime we build a tunnel under Stonehenge costing £1.5 billion plus to protect one heritage sight.

Currently at Stoke Bruene in the museum and the lock outside is a disgrace, a museum piece in its own right. Due for work this winter I believe.

 

[IanD]

21 minutes ago, magnetman said:

I didn't say they were all to be used for housing. This would obviously be regional and you would find much higher density in urban areas for example. 

 

There are a lot of other uses which publicly owned land can be put to which don't include heavy boats and people living there because it is cheap. 

 

 

If you only build in urban areas (10% of the canals? 20%?) then the housing numbers become much smaller still, even with high-density housing like multi-story flats.

 

There are other uses, but you keep on ignoring the facts -- as far as area to build stuff on is concerned, the canals are *tiny*, 3000 hectares is 30km2 for the entire canal network. "Built-up areas" in the UK total about 1.3M hectares which is 13000km2, more than 400x the area of every UK canal put together if you built over every single mile of them.

 

Numbers matter... 😉

Edited July 21, 2023 by IanD

[David Mack]

29 minutes ago, IanD said:

The area of a typical UK canal (half a chain wide) is about 4 acres for a 1 mile length,

Probably about twice that figure if you include the width of the towpath and the land taken up by embankment and cutting side slopes. And that excludes other operational land such as reservoirs.

But doesn't really alter your conclusion that the scope for additional housing on infilled canals is a drop in the ocean.

[Paul C]

Aaaah, I gave the "fill them in and build houses on them" idea a thoroughly good ignoring, because they are still needed (in the main) to perform their drainage function. I guess a slim minority, in dense high-land-value city areas, where alternate drainage (or its not responsible for the local drainage) could be done, its a maybe.

 

The likely outcome is that some just lose their "connected and navigable" state. They might remain connected but the locks decommissioned, or where there is a breach risk, part infilled for mitigation. Or they might remain navigable but become isolated. Imagine, a network instead of consisting of many rings and spurs, where some of the rings become U shaped and the spurs aren't so long (or don't exist at all).

 

And to correct a previously inaccurate point regarding reclassification/declassification, there is no such classification as "remainder waterway". There's (legally) commercial and cruiseway. If its a navigable CRT canal that's in neither of those, its de-facto "remaining" but its just a phrase, not a legal definition. So, maybe some of the outlying cruiseways will become declassified.

[magnetman]

It isn't all about building. I never said it was so there was nothing to ignore.

 

People need places to relax and enjoy themselves too. 

 

The vast majority (numbers matter) of people will never actually access the water on a regular basis. They will be confined to the towpaths which are narrow and slightly unsatisfactory corridors. If the canal was not there or was only partly there all sorts of pleasure activities could take place. Small boats, swimming, picnics in disused locks, exploration and adventuring. 

 

By keeping canals as they are now the effect is to restrict access to the land upon which the water is placed to those who have the means to operate canal boats, or hire boats for a short period at vast expense. 

 

I know there are canoeists and paddle boardists but it won't be a great place for these with massive steel boxes going around helmed by half cut old codgers with Harold Shipman beards. 

 

This is not an egalitarian use of land space and given that the public purse pays so much in you have to wonder if this is a sensible use of limited resources. 

 

Keep the water but the locks don't need to work. 

 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by magnetman

[IanD]

1 minute ago, David Mack said:

Probably about twice that figure if you include the width of the towpath and the land taken up by embankment and cutting side slopes. And that excludes other operational land such as reservoirs.

But doesn't really alter your conclusion that the scope for additional housing on infilled canals is a drop in the ocean.

Don't forget you're going to need access to all these houses/flats too, including parking for EVs so they can be charged... 😉

 

But as you say the *exact* numbers don't matter, even approximate ones show it's simply not a solution to the problem.

 

I really wish some people would do a quick "back-of-envelope" calculation before putting hare-brained ideas forwards -- for example suggestions that increased license fees can replace the government grant, especially if means-tested... 😉

2 minutes ago, Paul C said:

Aaaah, I gave the "fill them in and build houses on them" idea a thoroughly good ignoring, because they are still needed (in the main) to perform their drainage function. I guess a slim minority, in dense high-land-value city areas, where alternate drainage (or its not responsible for the local drainage) could be done, its a maybe.

 

The likely outcome is that some just lose their "connected and navigable" state. They might remain connected but the locks decommissioned, or where there is a breach risk, part infilled for mitigation. Or they might remain navigable but become isolated. Imagine, a network instead of consisting of many rings and spurs, where some of the rings become U shaped and the spurs aren't so long (or don't exist at all).

 

And to correct a previously inaccurate point regarding reclassification/declassification, there is no such classification as "remainder waterway". There's (legally) commercial and cruiseway. If its a navigable CRT canal that's in neither of those, its de-facto "remaining" but its just a phrase, not a legal definition. So, maybe some of the outlying cruiseways will become declassified.

 

Except that would need an Act of Parliament which given the legislative load -- not enough time to deal with *far* more pressing things than canals -- simply isn't going to happen any time soon...

 

Even closing (or effectively closing) some of the restored "remainder" waterways like the Rochdale and HNC which are expensive to maintain and under-used is fraught with problems for CART, since large parts of the funding -- many millions of pounds -- came from bodies like the Millennium Fund and local councils (and the EU?) on the condition that they stayed open for many years (25? 50?), and this would have to be repaid if they were closed or no longer usable for navigation. The cost of this would *far* exceed the saving in maintenance costs even over many years... 😞