Rapid Expansion.

[John Orentas]

Ever since I started boating everybody and every article and publication has pronounced that we have 2,000 miles of navigable waterways in Britain. All of a sudden I keep reading about 4,000 miles.

 

Have I missed something, I know there have been a few restoration schemes completed in the last couple of years but not that much, has someone built another thousand or two miles of canal without letting me know.

 

Anyone know the truth of it?

[ChrisPy]

they've all been re-classified as dual waterways.

you can travel in both directions, so they get counted twice.

[dor]

I thought the oft-quoted figure was 3,000 miles.

 

Must be rounding error.

[dor]

John, did the figure of 4,000 come from waterscape?

 

They say "Discover Britain's 4000 miles of rivers, lakes and canals."

 

Perhaps the answer is that they are including rivers, whereas the lower figure related to canals.

[DHutch]

they've all been re-classified as dual waterways.

you can travel in both directions, so they get counted twice. 

- Yeah, quite possably!

[fender.]

Ever since I started boating everybody and every article and publication has pronounced that we have 2,000 miles of navigable waterways in Britain.  All of a sudden I keep reading about 4,000 miles.

 

Have I missed something, I know there have been a few restoration schemes completed in the last couple of years but not that much, has someone built another thousand or two miles of canal without letting me know.

 

Anyone know the truth of it?

32769[/snapback]

 

Possibly the 2000 mile navigable waterway around britain is included?

 

(thats the sea)

[Richard Fairhurst]

Anyone know the truth of it?

32769[/snapback]

 

I'll hold my hands up and say "guilty as charged" on this one.

 

The 2,000 mile figure is BW's - it relates to their network, not anyone else's. It's actually a few years out of date. Since then, we've had the reopening of the Rochdale (intermittently ), HNC, Forth & Clyde and Union, so the BW network alone is substantially larger already.

 

There are, of course, some pretty major waterways outside BW control. The Thames, for one; the Broads, the MSC, the Bridgewater, a couple of Avons, Nene, Great Ouse, Medway, Yorkshire Derwent, Chelmer & Blackwater, Wey, Basingstoke, etc. etc. The non-tidal Thames alone is 135 miles from Inglesham to Teddington.

 

But there are plenty more rivers which are regularly navigated, but we don't generally consider. The Wye downstream of Tintern is certainly one; the Usk, the Tyne, the Wear; there's a lovely article on the IWA website about navigating the Tweed - and so it goes on.

 

The full calculations were in an article I put together for Canal Boat, based on a couple of readers' researches, in around spring/summer 2003 (I forget the exact date, sorry). It's a bit of a "how long is a piece of string?" question, of course, but you can use the raw materials in that article to arrive at your own figure. I arrived at Waterscape shortly afterwards and brought the 4,000 figure with me....

[bottle]

 

Congratulations on new job as editor of "Waterways World" or is that another wind up from Mr. V.

[Richard Fairhurst]

It's true! And thank you.