IWA Waterways Magazine - Summer 2020

Issue 268 • Summer 2020

waterways www.waterways.org.uk

captain canal camps IWA’s outgoing Chief Exec looks back on his legacy

Amp it up

Building and cruising an advanced electric boat

keeping afloat

The Jam Butty on this year’s challenges for roving traders

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Summer 2020 Contents Issue 268 • Summer 2020

waterways www.waterways.org.uk

captain canal camps IWA’s outgoing Chief Exec looks back on his legacy

Amp it up

Building and cruising an advanced electric boat

keeping afloat

The Jam Butty on this year’s challenges for roving traders

5. Welcome

14

Column of the National Chairman

6. News The latest from within IWA and beyond

12. Campaigns Update Introducing IWA’s Waterways Watch initiative PLUS

14. Twenty Years at the Top

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COVER PICTURE: London from the River Lea by Helen Dobbie.

Interview with the Association’s Chief Executive, Neil Edwards

17. Amp it Up

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Malcolm Bridge shares his experience of building and cruising an advanced electric boat

20. Jam-packed Roving traders The Jam Butty reflect on retail in the slow lane WATERWAYS EDITOR: Amelia Hamson Tel: 01283 742962 E-mail: a.hamson@wwonline.co.uk FEATURES EDITOR: Sarah Henshaw E-mail: s.henshaw@wwonline.co.uk ART EDITOR: Claire Davis EDITORial design: Jonathan Lee ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER: Jake Tyers Tel: 01283 742 977 E-mail: j.tyers@wwonline.co.uk ADVERTISING DESIGN: Jo Ward ADVERTISING PRODUCTION: Samantha Furniss E-mail: s.furniss@wwonline.co.uk REPROGRAPHICS: Waterways World Ltd, 151 Station Street, Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, DE14 1BG. Printed in England by Warners (Midlands) PLC, Bourne, Lincs Articles may be reproduced provided permission is obtained and acknowledgement made.

ISSN 0969-0654 A non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee (612245), Registered as a Charity (No. 212342) Founded: 1946, Incorporated 1958 REGISTERED OFFICE: Island House, Moor Road, Chesham, HP5 1WA Tel: 01494 783453 E-mail: iwa@waterways.org.uk Web site: www.waterways.org.uk Chief Executive and Company Secretary– Neil Edwards National Chairman – Paul Rodgers For press inquiries please contact: pressoffice@waterways.org.uk For all other contact details, including trustees and branch officers, visit: www.waterways.org.uk/about/ meet_team Nothing printed in Waterways may be construed as policy or an official announcement unless stated, otherwise IWA accepts no liability for any matter in the magazine. Although every care is taken with advertising matters no responsibility whatsoever can be accepted for any matter advertised. Where a photo credit includes a note such as CC-BY-SA, the image is made available under that Creative Commons licence; full details at www.creativecommons.org

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22. An Olympian Effort The waterways legacy of the 2012 London Games

26. Love Your Waterways The joys of travelling the canals by kayak

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28. Restoration Hub What Biodiversity Net Gain means for the waterways

32. Year of the Volunteer We hear from two people who are brand new in their roles

34. IWA Awards Nominations now open for 2020 SEVEN REASONS WHY YOUR MEMBERSHIP CONTRIBUTION IS VITAL 1. IWA Canal Clean-ups led by our branches keep many waterways clear of debris 2. Restoration is kept high priority through funding for the Waterway Recovery Group 3. Over 10,000 days of volunteering each year will be supported with the right training, tools and materials 4. IWA can defend the waterways from unwelcome development 5. We can pass on traditional skills and workbased experience for volunteering young people 6. We can lobby the Government and work with other organisations to repair, improve and protect our waterways heritage 7. Your voice is counted when IWA speaks up for all those who enjoy the country’s canals and rivers

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Welcome The Column of the National Chairman

I

’m sure you, like me, would never have predicted, as you read the last edition of Waterways just three months ago, that life would have changed quite so dramatically in such a short time. The coronavirus pandemic has touched every aspect of our personal and business lives with the meaning of ‘normal’ being redefined on an almost daily basis. With it has come great uncertainty and I know that across the Association many members’ lives have been turned upside down whether due to the challenge of spending so much time at home, falling ill, changing employment conditions or, for some, facing untimely family bereavement.

It has been a time of reassessing priorities, re-establishing relationships and finding new ways to do what, in the past, were simple or mundane daily tasks.

In many areas, we long to get back to the old ways; in others, we’re discovering a new normal that we would quite like to hold onto once all this is past.

As I look back over the last few months, I am delighted at how the Association has responded. Through January and February many things continued as usual, and a major achievement during that period was the re-establishment of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Waterways. I look forward to working with Michael Fabricant MP and the other APPGW officers to ensure that IWA fulfils its role in providing the secretariat for this group in the most effective manner.

The trustees’ governance workshop in late January re-emphasised the need for a clear separation of governance and management activity. The trustees’ meeting at the end of February brought further clarity on the subject with discussions centring on three main areas: governance, management, and objectives.

As a result, we will be changing the way in which trustees are selected. In line with Charity Commission guidelines, from this year trustees will be appointed based on the skills that are needed to provide proper governance of the Association. We

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will be looking for people with expertise in areas that will be most needed over the next three years to complement the knowledge and skills of existing trustees.

Linked to better governance will be the establishment of one management team across the whole Association to ensure that IWA’s charitable objectives are delivered consistently to staff and volunteer teams working as one. Central to aligning the organisation’s wide-ranging activities will be the refocusing of our longterm objectives around four overarching themes: Regeneration, Influence, Sustainability and Engagement.

There’s nothing like a time of crisis to demonstrate the value of working together. This has been particularly apparent with the Association as we’ve had to make some difficult decisions over the past couple of months. The cancellations of this year’s IWA Canalway Cavalcade, Trailboat Festival and Festival of Water have been a disappointing outcome of the restrictions we face. I am, however, very proud of the teams who have worked so hard to plan these events and I’m delighted that we have seen the management team of volunteers and staff working together to manage the transition of these events to 2021.

Likewise, we have all been working together to ensure that our branches have been fully supported during the transition to online meetings. In late February and early March I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at some of the last physical branch AGMs. As the impact of the lockdown became apparent, it seemed that much of the activity of the Association would be significantly curtailed. Some monthly branch meetings and AGMs were initially cancelled or postponed but, within a few days, most were reinstated as online events, demonstrating the resilience and adaptability of our members. For some, getting used to the technology held a lot of fear, however, with a little help, getting connected proved to be a less daunting task than initially thought.

These online meetings, up and down the country, have allowed us to reach many members who would not normally be able to get to physical meetings. I’m confident that this is likely to become a feature of the new normal.

As we try to work out the right (or least worst) course though this uncharted territory, it sometimes feels like we’re making it up as we go along. There have been no easy decisions! This is where the diversity of IWA comes into its own.

The breadth of viewpoints, insights and analytical skills blended with the determination to work together and make the most of things has provided an exemplar for the future as we navigate our way through the current uncertainty.

When the good times return, these are the skills and attributes we will need as we set the Association on its course for the next 75 years. Please have a look at the news item on page 8 regarding the appointment of trustees and, if you have what it takes to guide the Association through our ever-changing future, I hope you will be willing to put your name forward.

The vital work of the Association is clearly portrayed in this issue of Waterways and I hope you will enjoy reading about all that is being achieved.

Thank you for your continued support for IWA whether as a member, volunteer or advertiser in the pages of this magazine.

That has never been more valued and appreciated than it is now. I encourage you to stay safe and keep healthy in the coming months.

Paul Rodgers

IWA Waterways |

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Waterways News

Parliamentarians briefed The General Election in December 2019 resulted in new MPs in 25% of the constituencies containing a navigable waterway or one under restoration. As more than 400 constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales are home to a canal, river or derelict waterway, IWA published a new briefing titled The Future of the Inland Waterways to ensure our MPs are up to date on the issues facing our inland waterways network.

The document was launched at a reception in January held at the Houses of Parliament and attended by 60 people. Among the issues raised in the briefing are the ongoing need for adequate funding of the publicly owned waterways operated by Canal & River Trust and the Environment Agency, research into how the waterways can be more sustainable and help contribute to the Government’s goal of the UK becoming carbon neutral by 2050, the need for affordable residential moorings, the importance of protecting our waterways heritage, and how waterways restoration can act as a catalyst for a much wider regeneration of the surrounding area.

MPs attending the event were encouraged to join the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Waterways, which was due to be reconstituted after the election (see page 10).

Above: (L-r) Paul Rodgers, Simon Baynes MP and Mike Haig at the Parliamentary reception in January.

Left: Rosie Winterton MP (r) receives her copy of The Future of the Inland Waterways with Wendy Humphries, chair of IWA Lancs & Cumbria Branch.

Changes to 2020 events

IWA’s Festival of Water, due to take place in Worcester over the August bank holiday weekend, has moved to 2021.

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Our very busy programme of work parties, walks, canal camps, talks, meetings and socials has been halted in line with the Government’s guidance as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Our volunteers and staff have been keen to continue with as much of the meeting programme as possible and have embraced digital meeting software, such as Zoom. Many IWA members have been able to attend meetings they had never previously been able to get to and have found sessions relatively easy to access.

We have cancelled IWA Canalway Cavalcade (due to take place on 2nd-3rd May), and many boaters and stallholders booked in to attend the festival have deferred their bookings to 2021 to show their support for next year’s event. IWA’s Festival of Water has been rescheduled to take place in Worcester in August 2021, and the Trailboat Festival on the Wey & Arun Canal has also been postponed to 2021.

For news about our branch activities and national events, please take a look at the event calendar on our website for the most up-to-date information.

Summer 2020 20/04/2020 16:40

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Waterways News

A move to skillset-based trustee selection IWA Trustees have recently reviewed the Charity Commission guidelines which require charities to consider “the skills and experience the current trustees have, and whether there are any gaps”. The trustees concluded that a more diverse board with a wider range of identified skills, experience and perspectives is needed to ensure the most effective delivery of the charity’s objectives.

To achieve this, from this year, rather than being elected, new trustees will be selected based on the skillsets that will be needed over the next three years to complement the skills of existing trustees on the board.

Six trustee positions are available to be filled this year as two exisiting postholders, Ray Carter and Paul Strudwick, are stepping down having served the charity for a maximum term of twelve years. Four trustees, Chris Howes, Mike Palmer, Paul Rodgers and Verna Smith, have come to the end of their three-year terms.

The latter four trustees are eligible to stand again for a further period.

The proposed process is that a selection panel of remaining trustees, including Ray Carter, Paul

Strudwick and three non-trustee IWA members with board level business/ governance experience chaired by an IWA Deputy Chairman, will review applications and appoint up to six trustees based on the skills applicants have evidenced.

Applications will need to be returned by 5pm on Friday 12th June. The selection panel will meet in late June with applicants being notified of appointments by 3rd July.

New appointees will be invited to attend the trustees’ meeting on 18th July with their formal, legal role as trustees commencing after the AGM. Next steps: information on the application process, which will detail the skillsets needed and final details of the process to be followed, will be available online from 1st May. It can also be obtained from Tracy Higgin – email tracy.higgin@waterways.org. uk or write to Trustee Applications, Island House, Moor Road, Chesham, HP5 1WA. We welcome applications from people from all walks of life and will be further promoting this process on our website, our Bulletin email newsletter, as well as through wider advertising.

New series of Waterways Webinars As staying in has become the new going out and everyone has been finding ways of keeping in contact with others over the internet, IWA has launched a new series of waterway presentations that are open to all of our members.

This is a new weekly programme with speakers joining us every Tuesday lunchtime or evening to talk about a huge range of topics including our

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Silver Propeller Challenge, Scottish canals, new forms of boat propulsion, the Boston to Peterborough Wetland Corridor, and much more.

The presentations are given on Zoom, which is very easy to use on computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. You can find the full programme of events and register your interest on our website at waterways. org.uk/events_festivals/online_talks.

With sadness We are saddened to report the deaths of Dr David Hilling MBE and Roger Hasdell.

■ David was IWA Vice President and an eminent authority on many areas of transport. As an enthusiastic member of IWA's Inland Shipping Group, including being its chair for some years, he keenly promoted the benefits of transport by water wherever he went. He had a widely respected career in the academic world, and was considered a world authority on ports and inland shipping, publishing many books and papers, and was well travelled on the strength of this, including lecturing for five years at the University of Ghana. He was appointed an MBE in the 2004 New Year's honours for services to the inland waterways.

■ Roger was a journalist by career and brought all of his experience to the role of volunteer editor of Waterways magazine, which he carried out from March 1973 to December 1989. He was a prominent figure in IWA Northampton Branch for the best part of 50 years and was awarded the Cyril Styring Trophy in 1990 for his outstanding contribution in furthering the Association's campaigns.

Summer 2020 20/04/2020 16:41

Waterways News

health & safety updates for restorations There are more than 40 active waterway restoration groups across the country, which between them are bringing over 500 miles of waterway back to life. They are supported and championed by IWA’s Restoration Hub which shares resources, materials and expert advice to prevent waterway groups using time and effort to acquire technical information on an individual basis. Our Hub acts as a central area of guidance and advice that groups can access online or over the phone.

One of the biggest resources within the portfolio is Waterway Recovery Group’s Practical Restoration Handbook, made up of 18 sections covering restoration topics from site management to dewatering. First published more than 20 years ago, the first seven sections on the theme of Health & Safety, site set up and leadership have now been

the country. Authored fully updated principally by Mikk and reissued as Bradley, IWA’s Technical Book One of the Support Officer, with new Practical contributions from Restoration Practical other professionally Handbook. restoration skilled people across Containing 20 Handbook the staff team and WRG sections on committee, the handbook topics related to Book One: contains the very latest health and safety Health & Safety information and allows regulations, restoration groups to personal safety benefit from a huge and insurance, site depth of experience. management and Book One of the leadership skills, Practical Restoration environmental Handbook is now considerations available online and and waste two copies of the book management, the are being distributed new handbook will to every active restoration group in be an invaluable resource for restoration England and Wales. volunteers and site directors across

Weaver boat gathering in aid of canal restoration It’s hoped that the Waterways Restoration Showcase will take place as planned at the Anderton Boat Lift on the Weaver Navigation on 22nd-23rd August.

Following the success of a similar event in Liverpool last year, IWA Chester & Merseyside branch is hosting the showcase aboard steam ship Daniel Adamson where up to 15 restoration groups and waterways societies will be displaying their projects and talking to members of the public about how they can get involved.

Jim Forkin, IWA Chester & Merseyside branch chair, thanked the Canal & River Trust and the Daniel Adamson team for

their help organising the event and said: “It is important that the public can meet with these inspirational volunteers and see first hand the work done by these brilliant societies to restore so many derelict waterways. The economic and social impact is enormous for the communities that they benefit.”

Boat-owners from across the North West are invited to cruise to the Anderton Boat Lift, and the showcase will be followed by a four-day cruise along the river, organised by the River Weaver Navigation Society. To book a place on the cruise, contact RWNS at bob.osborne@hotmail. co.uk or 01606 553433.

Slimmer Waterways You may have spotted that your Summer issue of Waterways magazine is a bit slimmer than usual. The waterways sector, like many others, has been severely affected by the coronavirus lockdown and one of the impacts is a reduction in advertising spend. A slimmer magazine also reduces our postage costs. We hope to return to our usual size before the end of the year but this is dependent on waterway businesses feeling able to spend on advertising. Please do support them as much as you can this summer.

AGM date confirmed

Daniel Adamson at the Anderton Boat Lift.

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Notice is hereby given that the Association’s Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday 26th September 2020 at 11.30am.

The venue will be confirmed in the autumn edition of Waterways magazine alongside the meeting agenda, and both will be posted on IWA’s website as soon as they are finalised.

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Waterways News

New Parliamentary group chair announced The All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Waterways held its inaugural meeting for the new Parliament on 25th February and appointed Michael Fabricant MP as its new chair.

Mr Fabricant is well known for his support of the waterways in his Lichfield constituency, particularly the work of the Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust of which he is a patron, and is a previous recipient of our Parliamentarian of the Year Award.

At the meeting, the group also agreed key topics that would be addressed over the coming months, including the importance of protecting waterways heritage, how waterway restoration can act as a catalyst for much wider regeneration, and encouraging access to the waterways for sport and leisure use.

Red diesel budget announcement Ahead of the Chancellor’s Spring Budget on 11th March, IWA had raised concerns with HM Treasury about a possible change concerning red diesel, which had been reported in the press. The letter welcomed Government's aim to reduce carbon emissions, but highlighted that removing all access to red diesel could achieve the opposite of its desired effect and negatively impact on the environment and the economy.

The Budget subsequently confirmed that Government will remove “the entitlement to use red diesel except for agriculture, fish farming, rail and non-commercial heating” from April 2022. IWA remains concerned that the change could result in adverse environmental and economic impacts through a loss of tourism, employment and trade, but we welcome the announcement that boaters will still be entitled to use red diesel for heating and cooking. Government has said it will explore options for how this will work for boats with only one fuel tank.

IWA will be taking up an offer from HMT, received immediately after the Budget announcement, to be part of discussions on why other sectors should still be allowed to use red diesel. We will put the case that removing the subsidy completely would have a detrimental effect on commercial craft, including the hire-boat trade and waterborne freight traffic, which represents a small but important contribution to having fewer lorries on the road.

IWA is passionate about protecting and restoring the country's 6,500 miles of canals and navigable rivers for the future, and we know that to do so, boating needs measures to ensure it is more sustainable and affordable, as well as to preserve waterways environment and heritage. We were bolstered by the news in the Budget that the Chancellor has committed to at least double the funding for the commercialisation of innovative clean energy technologies; IWA is keen to see more research taking place into alternative forms of propulsion.

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Paul Rodgers, IWA National Chairman (l) shakes hands with Michael Fabricant MP and APPGW chair.

We are asking members to encourage their MPs to join the APPGW; take a look and see if your MP is involved and, if not, contact them asking them to come along to the next meeting – waterways.org.uk/news_campaigns/campaigns/all_party_ parliamentary_group_for_waterways.

IWA and Waterways World in joint industry campaign Many waterways businesses have either closed or are operating a much-reduced service as a result of the coronavirus crisis. In response, IWA and Waterways World have launched a joint initiative to quantify the impact on the sector and to make a case to Government for support for the industry.

The first stage was to utilise WW’s extensive database to contact nearly 1,500 inland waterways businesses and ask them to complete a short but detailed survey. In a joint email from Paul Rodgers, IWA National Chairman, and Peter Johns, Publisher of Waterways World, they called for as many responses as possible to ensure that a powerful message is sent to DEFRA and the rest of Government.

Peter Johns said: “We have been delighted by the incredible response from the industry to our call. I would emphasise that this is joint initiative by WW and IWA combining our extensive knowledge and contacts within the waterways industry and IWA’s expertise in political campaigning. I have witnessed that expertise at first hand and it demonstrates that the Association is as relevant to the waterways today as it was when first formed nearly 75 years ago”.

Paul Rodgers added: “We are also working with Canal & River Trust, British Marine and the Broads Authority to see how our collective insight can be brought to bear, and as we gather more information we plan to lobby Government departments, contact all MPs with waterways in their constituencies, and launch a wider campaign to encourage waterway supporters to write to their MPs to champion the inland waterways sector.”

If there are any waterways businesses which have not received details of the survey please email admin@ wwonline.co.uk and we will ensure that your details are passed on and send you a link to the online survey.

Summer 2020 20/04/2020 16:41

Waterways News

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE WATERWAYS The 2020 global Covid-19 pandemic has turned normal life on its head and has decimated the operations of whole portions of the economy, communities and many charities. IWA is obviously not alone in feeling its impacts, and, at this early stage, the most severe effects are still to be felt across the UK. What is apparent, however, is that the restrictions put in place by the Government in March will be detrimental to the charity sector, with estimated losses over the subsequent three months of approximately £4.3bn.

our Canal Camp working holidays, which attract around 400 volunteers each year and bring around £25,000 to the Association.

Waterways sector impacts

Our work during the crisis

■ Due to pressures on funding, maintaining the waterways is likely to become a lower priority for local authorities and statutory bodies for the coming years. Navigation authorities face considerable losses in income and may have to cut or scale back significant amounts of their maintenance activity and provision of facilities. We are particularly concerned that this may threaten future dredging activity, which in turn will increase flood risks for many communities that were already badly affected by the terrible winter of 2019/20.

We have managed to carry on the work of our staff team during the crisis, and have been answering enquiries from concerned members or people who have been finding it difficult to contact their local navigation authority. We have instigated new remote working practices and have been encouraging our volunteer-run branches to adopt technology to continue to hold branch meetings, to remain active and communicate between themselves and with head office about any issues that are arising.

■ Significant losses of income for boating companies, which threaten the livelihoods and existence of many longestablished companies that are unable to operate for the crucial spring/summer tourist season of 2020.

Developing a response

■ Loss of income from cancelled boat festivals. These are mainly organised by small, local groups and represent their main income source for the year.

■ Lost momentum, lost support and increasing costs for the 40-plus restoration projects taking place across the country from suspended activity, deteriorating sites, theft, vandalism and volunteers lost to ill health.

■ Increased demand and additional pressure on local facilities across many areas of the network due to larger numbers of people living or self-isolating on boats and using the towpath for daily exercise.

Impacts on IWA and our capacity ■ Loss of members and supporters over the period of the crisis and a resulting loss of income from subscriptions and donations.

■ Loss of grant funding as many activities, such as volunteer projects and Canal Camps, have been cancelled for a significant portion of the year and grants can no longer be made or claimed. Monies may also be diverted elsewhere to support people directly affected by Covid-19.

■ Loss of income from our two key income-generating events that have been cancelled or are under threat, and suspended trading activity.

■ Loss of income from other cancelled activities, such as

Summer 2020 006-11 News AH4.indd 11

■ Losses of upwards of 12% expected on investment portfolio value.

■ Cancellation or postponement of volunteer-led activities, representing the loss of thousands of working hours that help maintain, improve and restore the waterways.

While we have a number of concerns about the situation that this crisis has created for the UK waterways and the implications for communities up and down the country, we are working on developing an appropriately scaled response to strengthen our work, help meet the needs of boaters, local IWA branches and restoration groups, and to identify and monitor problems on the waterways as they occur.

DEFRA seeks IWA's views on the impacts At a meeting held in March, Defra's Navigation Team was keen to hear IWA’s input on the likely impact of Covid-19 on waterways across the country.

The meeting, which had been due to take place in London but was rearranged as a video meeting, was an opportunity for IWA to raise ongoing issues, such as funding for the publicly owned waterways, the importance of navigation authorities providing sufficient basic facilities and those relating to the heritage and restoration of the waterways.

The timing of the meeting allowed IWA the opportunity to outline concerns about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the waterways; these included boaters' health and access to facilities, boat-owners struggling to afford mooring and licence fees, navigation authorities' ability to deal with emergency repairs, and the impact on many waterway businesses, including hire-boat companies through having to close down their operations. We are also concerned that it is not just the larger, publicly funded navigation authorities that will be affected, particularly as the restrictions have come on top of extensive damage in the winter storms just a few weeks earlier.

Since the meeting, IWA has provided further background information to assist Defra in identifying the wider issues. Over the coming weeks and months we will continue to do what we can to lobby Government for help for navigation authorities, waterway businesses and boaters.

IWA Waterways |

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A boat Waterways turning at Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent.

Watch

RUPERT SMEDLEY

Spotlight on…

A well-surfaced towpath can make it accessible to all.

JOHN DODWELL

waterways watch Get involved in IWA’s latest initiative to tackle issues affecting boaters and towpath-users across the inland waterways Waterways Watch is a new initiative from IWA that aims to gather evidence about campaigning issues to assist the Association in lobbying navigation authorities and Government about problems or concerns experienced by everyone who uses our inland waterways.

The scheme follows on from the successful Gaptracker campaign that ran over the last two years, and gathered data from boaters about facilities that were missing or not fit for purpose. It found that the key area of concern was provision of the basic three facilities that all boaters need: water, rubbish disposal and portable toilet emptying. The findings were shared with navigation authorities, particularly Canal & River Trust which welcomed the report and incorporated it into its own research and plans for replacing and refurbishing boaters’ facilities. We are awaiting an update from them on how these plans are progressing.

GATHERING DATA Waterways Watch is very much about supplementing IWA’s knowledge of the waterways and will cover all navigable waterways and navigation authorities in England, Scotland and Wales. The information that we gather will help us to raise important issues with individual navigation authorities and build up a better picture of what problems are happening locally or where something is part of a wider national issue. It will also assist us in bringing together evidence for lobbying Government for additional funding for the publicly owned waterways.

Waterways Watch is not intended to replace any reporting system for emergency repairs or maintenance issues, which should continue to be communicated direct to the relevant navigation authorities.

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Dredging on the Slough Arm.

This new system aims to provide navigation authorities with reports on a wider range of specific issues over the coming months and years, such as dredging, winding holes, overhanging vegetation, issues experienced by towpath users and navigation issues identified by boaters. Waterways Watch will gather information on specific issues over a particular period of time. As one project gathers enough information for it to be taken up with relevant navigation authorities or other bodies, new issues will become available for reporting on. Waterway users will be able to suggest topics for new surveys.

IWA is well placed to campaign nationally about issues across all the inland waterways of the UK as we have established relationships with the various navigation authorities. Boaters, cyclists, walkers, anglers and anyone else who uses the waterways will be encouraged to take part. This call to all waterway users to get involved will enable certain issues to be prioritised and raised with the relevant navigation authority in a more encompassing and consistent way than previously.

Waterways Watch will be launched on the new IWA website with a reporting form as well as background information on the first topics where evidence is being sought. As the scheme progresses, the final reports of surveys will also be made available on the website.

TOP OF THE WATERWAYS WATCH LIST The first three topics for Waterways Watch, which will be launched via IWA’s new website, will be: ■ Dredging: Boaters – let us know where the bottom is too near the top

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Waterways Watch

bottom in the middle of a canal somewhere (the BCN perhaps?), or know that the depth of a waterway just won’t allow you to use it (e.g. seagoing boats which could previously transit the Forth & Clyde Canal) – please let us know.

Until Waterways Watch is launched on the new website, you can send your dredging observations (based on boating over the last year or so) to Amy Tillson, IWA Campaigns Officer at amy.tillson@ waterways.org.uk.

Does your local towpath look like this?

Winding holes

Winding holes: Boaters – let us know which winding holes are overgrown, silted up or blocked Towpaths: All waterway users – let us know the places where you find it difficult to access the towpath, or move along it, or where paths don’t exist Information on all these topics is encouraged from across the wider waterways, not just those managed by the larger navigation authorities.

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Dredging In an ideal world, we would be consistently asking navigation authorities to dredge all their waterways to original profile, and this would have happened by now. While this has been IWA’s agreed policy for many years, we have to be realistic in acknowledging that funding such a scheme will always be a stumbling block, even taking into account the wider environmental benefits. We recognise that the financial fallout from the current Covid-19 pandemic will also have an impact on available funding.

What are the wider benefits to dredging than just avoiding the inconvenience or embarrassment of individual boaters who get stuck on the bottom somewhere? Greater depth of water below a boat’s hull and propeller allows for more efficient use of fuel and less resulting wash or turbulence (with associated environmental benefits in terms of fuel consumption and less damage to the bank).

And in these times of unpredictable weather, better-dredged summit pounds, reservoirs and feeder channels would give resilience in maintaining navigation during periods of water shortage.

How can Waterways Watch help? Until we have convinced Government that investing in dredging to original profile will be a cost-saving and environment-benefiting scheme in the long term, we can at least ensure that the waterways remain as available as possible for the boats that use them. By highlighting problem areas at the earliest opportunity, we can help navigation authorities prioritise where they should be spending their dredging budgets.

As every owner of a deep-draughted (and maybe even the notso-deep-draughted) boat knows, there is nothing more frustrating (and sometimes embarrassing) than being stuck in the middle of the channel. So if you have gone aground on a gravel shoal on a river (the Nene is particularly renowned for this), got stuck on the

The Chelmer & Blackwater being dredged – where else needs attention?

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Winding holes, wides, swinging areas or wide waters – whatever you call it, it’s the place where a boat longer than the width of a navigation can turn.

Following on from a joint project a few years ago with the Historic Narrow Boat Club, we are working in partnership with the organisation again following a request from Canal & River Trust to help identify a definitive list of where all of its winding holes are.

While CRT has specifically asked for help, by including this issue in our first Waterways Watch topics we are hoping to receive comments relating to other navigation authorities too, and about wider issues than just where winding holes are located.

As part of this project we will also be encouraging off-line marina operators to allow (or even encourage) the use of their entrances as winding holes – if a boat is able to turn sooner on its journey this will save fuel and potentially water supply if the next nearest winding hole is through any locks, as well as helping to reduce congestion in some places.

We want to hear from you about where the winding holes in your area are, where they are obstructed with overgrown vegetation, silted up or blocked, and also suggestions for potential new winding hole locations that would help alleviate water supply issues on lock flights or congestion near marinas.

Until Waterways Watch is launched on the new website, you can send your recollections of any winding hole issues that you’ve experienced in the last year to Amy Tillson, IWA Campaigns Officer at amy.tillson@waterways.org.uk.

Towpath and river path access We are calling on all towpath users, and particularly those on bicycles or with pushchairs, wheelchairs or other mobility devices, to let us know the places that you find it difficult to access the towpath, or to move along it, due to barriers, steps or poor surfaces.

We would also like to get a clearer picture of where navigable waterways don’t have paths running alongside them, such as on some rivers and navigable drains. This will enable us to build up a clear picture of where we would like to campaign for new paths in the future.

We will be working with walking and cycling organisations to encourage them to get their members to report issues too, as soon as the canals and rivers are back open for normal activity once the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.

In the meantime, if you have any observations of access issues on the waterways local to you, or that you have noticed further afield over the last year or so, please send your comments to Alison Smedley, IWA Campaigns & Public Affairs Manager at alison. smedley@waterways.org.uk.

During the current restrictions in place on our waterways to prevent the spread of Covid-19, we will be encouraging people to send in reports based on their observations over the last 12 months.

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TWENTY YEARS AT THE TOP As he prepares to step down from his role as IWA’s Chief Executive this summer, we talk to Neil Edwards about Canal Camps, career highlights and stand-out campaigns

It was initially with the Waterway Recovery Group in 1979. I was always conscious that waterways restoration was happening and when I made a determined effort to find out more, I contacted London WRG, went to a few work parties and eventually became one of its regular volunteers.

You were known within WRG as being 'captain Canal Camps'. Tell us how that came about.

There was an article in Navvies magazine in the mid-1980s appealing for someone to take on the management of WRG’s Work Camps, as they were then known.

The camps generally operated over the summer holidays at just two or three sites for around a month with people coming and going at various times. They were on the periphery of WRG in some ways. The organiser at the time wanted to step down and there was some debate within WRG as to whether or not the camps were going to continue. Because I’d had lots of experience with the National Trust’s working holidays since leaving school, I thought I could make a useful contribution. I put my name forward and the leader at London WRG acted as my advocate. From that point on, I took on the organisation of the camps and then restructured them into week-long residential activities. I also renamed them Canal Camps and marketed them to a younger audience to get new people involved.

How have the Canal Camps changed since you first made the changes?

It took a while to get them going and I think we only ran four week-long camps in the first year. Gradually, we expanded the programme and built them up until we had around 25 a year, which took about ten or more years to do. We used the camps to get new people to stick around with WRG and join the weekend groups. We increased the number of the places that we could go to and approached local restoration societies asking them to consider hosting camps.

When I took on the role, there was just one very old, dilapidated van that was barely roadworthy, and a limited amount of kit that went everywhere. Over the years we invested in modern vehicles that were reliable, as well as trailers and new equipment. We tried to make it more professional, and raise the standards in regards to health and safety and the range of activities that could happen. We also added the training aspect to improve the overall effectiveness

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of the camps. Initially the emphasis was on trying to get more people involved, but as time went on it shifted towards trying to make the camps really productive and worthwhile.

That's quite an undertaking. Was it one of the highlights of your time with WRG? Yes. There was a risk at the time that the Canal Camps could have faded away. I thought they had a lot of potential and knew from my work with the National Trust that it was a real means of bring in new people and engaging a whole new audience. The Canal Camps have become a major feature of WRG and one of the jewels in the overall IWA crown. It’s something I’m pleased that’s worked out really well, and was well worth the effort. Looking back, I suppose it was a fairly sizeable undertaking but it never seemed so at the time because it started small and built up slowly.

WRG has also grown up in terms of becoming more professional and having greater expertise and influence on the restoration world. It has opened itself up to so many worksites, and is willing to help new schemes and be quite adventurous. Everyone’s been Neil was involved in several different committees before taking on the role of Chief Executive.

JOHN FLETCHER

How did your involvement with the waterways begin?

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Neil Edwards

Neil played a huge role in turning WRG’s Canal Camps into what they are today.

“Canal Camps have become a major feature of WRG and one of the jewels in the overall IWA crown” given an opportunity and WRG has not been too sniffy about going to different places – it’s tried to be fair to all and help every restoration scheme that’s going. I think WRG has done a lot of good around the system.

How did your career at IWA begin?

In 1989 I decided I’d stand as a Trustee for IWA, and at that time my key interest was very much WRG. Then in 1995 I saw the advertisement for the post of office manager at IWA, so I had to resign from my voluntary positions. Prior to that I’d been working in the City of London for a bank but having decided that I wanted a change of career, the idea of working for the waterways seemed attractive. Shortly after I became a full-time employee with the Association, I took on the role of Executive Director, which is essentially what I’ve been doing since.

IWA is a wide-reaching and complex organisation.

How did you gain the experience required to take on such a high-level role?

I was a volunteer on various committees for about six years before I became an employee. In the early 1990s I joined the Environment Committee, which was brought about because of a dispute on the Yorkshire Derwent – the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust had been very much opposed to restoring navigation. We noticed there was a bit of a schism between waterways restoration and wildlife and conservation interests. Other restoration schemes realised that there was a disaster waiting to happen on their patch too. We needed to find a way to work together with wildlife organisations because our objectives were really very similar.

I was soon also involved in the Restoration Committee, which aimed to give more support other than the physical and practical activities provided by WRG, and I became chair of that for a while. I attended other meetings on subjects such as finance and campaigns, and was the Deputy National Chairman of the Association for a few months as well.

This was all essential grounding for the Chief Executive role. The Association was, and still is in many ways, quite a complicated beast. It has a lot of different committees and when I joined there were many separate activities going on in parallel. To come in as a senior employee at the Association, I needed to know about all the things that were going on around the system and understand how the waterways worked. It helped that I’d built up a lot of contacts within the restoration groups through WRG as well.

we first started it in the early 1990s, it was a really big campaign. We got more than 100 different groups involved, and received support from local politicians.

The Save our System campaign started when funding for the waterways was looking particularly dicey and there was an increasing number of lengthy stoppages on the waterways. British Waterways and the Environment Agency were seriously underfunded and it was felt necessary to lobby government quite strongly on this. The campaign was partly inspired by people outside of IWA to begin with, but we quickly realised we needed to be active in this area and soon took the lead. There were protests held at various places around the country, and we organised a flotilla to cruise past the Houses of Parliament, which received good press coverage.

It all helped and money was made available to BW to clear some of the problems we were concerned about. The campaign may have been part of the inspiration for forming Canal & River Trust.

How important was the creation of CRT to IWA? Ever since the days of Robert Aickman, IWA had been keen on getting the nation’s waterways outside of direct government control and effectively into the third sector. When it became apparent that there might be some sort of audience for this within Government, IWA was very quick to move that forward. I think it’s fair to say that virtually every officer, at every opportunity engaged with Government at every level to push the idea.

I’d say that the conversion of BW to CRT is where IWA has had the biggest influence. The transformation of BW as a run-down, nationalised industry that was just trying to minimise expenditure, into CRT as a forward-thinking and engaging organisation, is, I think, the real achievement over the years. Since CRT has been set up, we’ve been pushing for changes to EA on a similar footing. Although that’s yet to happen, it’s not for want of trying.

Although there’s a long way to go until everything on the waterways is perfect, we’re certainly looking forward much more positively than our predecessors could ever have imagined.

The Save Our System campaign cruise past the Houses of Parliament.

There have been dozens of IWA-led campaigns over the years. Which ones stand out for you?

One of the things I was particularly involved with was the very first clean-up campaign. We tried to engage every restoration group around the country, every IWA branch and all sorts of other organisations in a big waterways clean-up over just one weekend in the spring. We did this for years, but when

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JOHN FLETCHER

Neil (l) at the AGM in 2005.

What is IWA's role in relation to CRT today?

In a way, IWA has been so successful that you could argue it’s started to do itself out of a job. But we’re not there yet. We still have, as I mentioned, EA waterways and other navigations with a precarious future to consider. Of course, there is a whole series of waterways under restoration that need an enormous amount of support and encouragement, and new parts of the system, like the Bedford-toMilton Keynes Waterway. Our chief roles are making the existing network even more sustainable, and reviving waterways that failed before we could save them.

There is so much that the waterways have to contribute and that has been evident in CRT’s shift towards engaging with people’s well-being. The fact that the waterways have been so suddenly ‘found’ by the TV companies is great for getting the population at large to appreciate them too. Looking back 30 or 40 years, there were still huge numbers of people who wanted to fill them in, so there’s been a substantial change around in public opinion. But we’re not entirely there yet as not every waterway is working to its full extent and not every restoration has been completed. There are a lot of challenges ahead, and part of IWA’s role is to contribute towards the galvanising of opinion, and assist on every waterway in the country – not just those in CRT’s core network.

There are occasions when things go wrong and IWA can step in and do things that nobody else can. A very good example is the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation and Essex Waterways. Unless IWA had been so bold, we’d have lost a very charming waterway. In a way, one of the things I’m proudest of doing within the Association is persuading Trustees at the time that we should take on the navigation. For me it was personal because I was brought up within a short distance of the waterway and had very close relatives who lived within a mile of it for almost 100 years. It was my local Navigation in every way. The success of Essex Waterways has been thanks to the team of local, dedicated volunteers led

by Roy Chandler.

Are there any aspects of IWA that you're continuing to be involved with after your retirement?

I have agreed to stay on as a director of the board of Essex Waterways Ltd in a voluntary capacity, and I will always retain an interest and try to support waterways restoration.

I’ve also agreed to continue to oversee IWA’s insurance activities. For many years we’ve been looking after the insurance arrangements of the majority of waterway groups around the country, including restoration trusts, boat clubs and community boat groups. It was started by Ted Hill, an insurance broker and one of the Association’s Trustees, who first set up the insurance arrangements for IWA in the 1970s. Soon after, it became evident that a number of restoration groups required insurance, and so they were arranged for them too. About 15 years ago, the Financial Conduct Authority started to regulate insurance activities, and that’s when I took it on. Since then, we’ve grown the number of organisations that we support and have expanded the range of insurance products that are available to them. Although we have insurance brokers looking after the day-to-day arrangements, I’m there to sort out any problems, assist with claims and to try to ensure that it all runs smoothly.

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“The waterways are one of the country’s big success stories, so we’ve got to ensure they have a longterm, sustainable future” What does regeneration of the waterways mean to you personally and in the context of IWA's 75th and WRG's 50th anniversaries?

The impact that the waterways have had on the lives of the nation is enormous. In IWA’s early years, canals were seen as liabilities that had to be closed down and disposed of in the most economical fashion but they are now more appreciated and in demand than ever before. I think the waterways are one of the country’s big success stories, so we’ve got to ensure they have a long-term, sustainable future, which is dependent on public support and appreciation. In that way, IWA has been a really successful charity and the aim should be to completely do itself out of business. But there’s a long way to go yet – there’s a lot more that’s not right and can be improved, which I’ll be keen to continue to support.

Finally, what would you like to say to IWA's members and supporters?

Quite simply: we can’t do it without you. IWA members are what makes the Association tick. Absolutely everything that I’ve mentioned has been utterly and entirely dependent on the goodwill and support of our members, volunteers and others in the waterways sector, whether they’re WRG volunteers, people who pay their subscriptions or committee members.

They’re the people who make it happen, and long may they continue.

Neil Edwards (r), and former IWA national chairman John Fletcher, meet with Waterways Minister Jonathan Shaw MP (l).

JOHN FLETCHER

Saving the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation was a personal, as well as a professional, achievement for Neil.

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Electric boating

amp it up Ampère is based on a BCN tug-style shell and has a deeper-than-usual draught.

Malcolm Bridge, member of IWA’s Sustainable Boating Group, shares his experiences of building and cruising an advanced electric narrowboat My wife, Barbara, and I own Ampère, a 57ft 6in BCN tug-style narrowboat with an innovative electric propulsion system. It was completed in 2015 but I have a long history of boating, which started with family holidays on the Thames in the late 1950s. By the ’70s, I’d hired narrowboats on the canals with university friends and purchased a 30ft steel shell to fit out myself.

The idea for the electric boat started back in the ’70s when a few of us were working on our boats at the same time, sharing just one socket. This used to trip fairly frequently, and in those days the chandlery where the power could be reset closed on Saturdays at lunchtime until the following Monday. I mulled over the prospect that if I ever built my own boat again I’d have a generator so that this didn’t keep happening. I also remember reading that electric motors were good at turning propellers – something that I filed in the back of my mind. My next boat was actually a 30ft Sea Otter shell that I bought in 2003. I never gave up on the idea of going electric, though, and the experience of fitting out two craft gave me a good working knowledge of boat systems.

After Barbara and I got together in 2006, we consolidated our resources and realised we had enough money to seriously consider having a boat built. My training is as a chemist, although I spent more time doing engineering in the textile industry, including control systems for special purpose machines than Summer 2020 017-19 electric AH.indd 17

Barbara and Malcolm cruising Ampère in 2016.

The solar panels have since been removed.

anything else. I thus have a decent background in electrics, so that all stood me in good stead when I started doing the research for Ampère.

Electrical experiment The shell was built by Roger Farrington and the fit-out was done by Wharf House Narrowboats. When Tim, the electrical engineer, and I put our heads together, we came up with the drive design between us. Tim’s very conservative and I had to twist his arm a few times to adopt technology that wasn’t 20 years old. On the other hand, he has the practical experience that stopped me doing stupid things, like putting the inverter under the bed where it would have cooked us or even set on fire.

I’d done a bit of work with programmable logic controls (small industrial computers) and I would have used one of those to control all of the electrical systems on the boat. Tim wasn’t familiar with them and wanted to use individual units so, as he was doing the work, I let him. I think we ended up with a boat that wasn’t quite as good as it could have been as a result, but it still works very well.

Undoubtedly, it was an experiment in designing an electric boat. When Ampère was launched in 2015, it was the most advanced craft of its kind on the IWA Waterways |

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Going through Dudley Tunnels on electric power.

A brass wheel for speed and direction, and a display for motor and battery data at the helm.

inland waterways, and I think it’s fair to say some of the boats that have been built since represent backwards steps. The only limitations that Ampère has are caused by it’s tug-style hull with a 30in draught, which is much deeper than most modern narrowboats.

domestic fan heaters and if we’ve got enough power to run those then we could easily run a heat pump, which would have given us the same heat while using a third of the power. I realised the possibility before the boat was finished but it was too late to build one into the design. Knowing what I do now, I’d say that it is a must-fit for any boat with a decent-sized bank of batteries.

Comparing consumption

Generating power

My objective in designing this boat was always to make it as efficient as possible, and I think we’ve achieved that. At 23 tons, Ampère is very heavy (few narrowboats get above 20 tons and the average is around 16 or 17) but we use less than half the fuel of what a typical narrowboat would for propulsion. We get through around 0.6 litres per cruising hour, which is pretty much the same as the very, very lightweight 30ft Sea Otter we had. A typical diesel-powered boat of around 57ft will probably use something like 1.5 litres – more if it’s as heavy as Ampère.

There are many ways in which an electric boat consumes less fuel; the motor doesn’t tick over while you’re in a lock, for example, which I reckon is worth about a 25% saving on what an equivalent diesel boat would use. We’ve then got a massive propeller by normal standards – it’s 20in by 14in and is still probably a bit too small. Electric motors have much higher torque than diesels, so they can spin bigger props. A 43hp diesel unit would stall with our propeller. We’re probably getting at least a third more thrust. In open water we’ll get about 55% prop efficiency, and I doubt most diesels would get much better than 40%.

There’s very little about Ampère that I would change. The only thing that’s caused us any problems is the diesel generator. I would still have one of about the same size and in the same place but it would be a different model. We chose the one that we’ve got because it was the most compact and quietest available at the time.

Now I would find a decent industrial generator and build in more soundproofing to compensate for the lack of a cocoon. It would also save me several thousand pounds.

Where I didn’t do my research was for the solar panels. When we were having the boat built, getting free power off the roof seemed like something we couldn’t refuse. Our panels actually failed after around 3₀⁄₂ years, which was very disappointing and unexpected. When I sat down and looked at the figures, we’d had a little over £200 worth of power off them each year. But the panels themselves were around £2,000 plus the cost of the controller and fitting, so it wasn’t enough to make it worthwhile replacing them. Even though the price of the panels has dropped, it’s still hopelessly uneconomical for our situation.

There are, however, circumstances where solar panels are very good. If you’re a liveaboard who doesn’t cruise very much, you can get much cheaper rigid panels and angle them towards the sun and you’ll get cheap power. They’ll probably also last longer than flexible ones. If you don’t have a generator, it’s probably something worth considering too. I don’t see them as financially viable for a cruising boat with a diesel generator.

Hot water It’s quite normal for boats these days to use waste heat from their propulsion engines for hot water systems.

We took it a step further and linked it to underfloor heating. We only get about 2₀⁄₂ hours of warmth rather than the four that we hoped for, and if I was doing it again I would rethink the routing of some of the pipework.

One big thing that we missed when designing Ampère was a water source heat pump. Given that we’ve got a lot of electrical power stored, we could easily run one. We tend to get most of our warmth from

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The battery bank is stored underneath the double berth.

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Electric boating

Single berths are stored under the long tug-style deck.

Tech specs Ampère has electric propulsion via a direct, coupled three-phase motor, driven from a 48V 1,250Ahr battery bank. The batteries are charged by a 8kVA diesel generator, and the battery charging and mains power are handled by a 10kVA inverter.

The electric motor is linked to a large propeller.

Greener future

The generator is stored in the bow locker.

If you’d like to find out more about Ampère and electric boating, contact Malcolm at malcolm.bridge@waterways.org.uk.

Summer 2020 017-19 electric AH.indd 19

If you want an electric boat, my advice would be to follow what we’ve done with Ampère, with just a few tweaks to make it more affordable. In terms of improving the performance or ‘greenness’ of an existing boat, putting in a much smaller diesel engine would make a significant difference, but there are restrictions to doing this. When I started boating, a 57-footer would have had a 19hp engine, but now it would be fitted with a 40hp-plus unit. The difference is the speed at which the engine runs and the torque it produces, so you’d need to gear it down and you just don’t get the equipment needed to do that at the moment.

Hybrid systems, on the other hand, are very expensive to install and produce only a small saving on running costs. For instance, the biggest saving you can get on a parallel hybrid is around 25% by turning it to electric power while going through locks. But not all owners of hybrid boats understand enough about how the systems work in order to get the best out of them.

One thing that has excited me recently is that I’ve been put in touch with someone, through the Sustainable Boating Group, who runs a hydrogen fuel cell business, and while I’d always imagined the cells to be hugely expensive I discovered that they’re not. There is potential for them to replace a generator, reduce the need for large banks of batteries, and produce a lot of heat suitable for use with radiators. I would think that 2kW of fuel cells could power the entire boat for around the same price as a standard diesel installation. The fly in that ointment is getting hold of and storing the hydrogen. The technology is there but exactly how you fit it into a boat is another matter. The prospect of having a system with absolutely no emissions, and that is very economical to run as you use all your waste heat, does excite me. If I was ten years younger, I’d be planning my next boat with a fuel cell in it.

Climbing the Wolverhampton Flight.

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Jam-packed Roving traders Helen and Andy Tidy have been making and selling jams and preserves from their canal boat since 2012. They tell Waterways how the business came about, and why they’re already well practised in dealing with the trading challenges this season presents…

could do. It was a reason to get out of bed.”

In terms of fresh ingredients, Helen quickly realised she was spoilt for choice on the network.

“There’s such a lot of fruit along our inland waterways.

I usually pick on the far side of the towpath – fruit that goes to waste. I couldn’t walk very far but I could pick handfuls of plums, cherries and sloes and make a batch of jam. It takes two hours from picking and making to potting, and that was me out for the day. It’s very therapeutic. It’s not rocket science and at the end I could literally see [or eat] the fruits of my labour.”

est-laid plans… As Waterways went to press a slew of canal festivals had been cancelled as part of strict Covid-19 containment measures. Among the disappointed roving traders booked into these events however, there can be few more resilient than the Jam Butty’s Helen and Andy Tidy, whose very business was spawned when a freak accident forced an entirely new career path.

For Helen the dream was always academia rather than cottage industry, and she was well on her way to completing a Masters in Shakespearean Literature when a head injury put a spanner in the works. Where she’d once immersed herself in books, impaired vision and chronic neuralgia now made reading near impossible, and it was the couple’s narrowboat which ended up filling the huge void.

Licence to forage

B

The inevitable surplus of jars were passed around family and friends, and quickly created a dedicated fan base. “People started asking me for stuff specifically,” Helen continues, “and it wasn’t long before I realised I could make a business out of this.”

She launched Wild Side Preserves in April 2012, aspiring to use “something wild” in every recipe. “I use rosehips, I use sloes, even wild garlic. I obviously have to buy stuff as well, but what I can gather from the canalside all helps.” She has permission from Canal & River Trust to forage on the towpaths (not required for personal consumption, but necessary

Canal convalescence Moored at Calf Heath Marina near Cannock, the 42ft Wand’ring Bark offered the perfect convalescence and, as Helen’s strength returned, it also presented the seeds of a new idea. “I spent a lot of time cruising and I realised I knew most of the fruit along the canal banks,” Helen explains. “As a child I did a lot of nature walking with my mum, who used to make elderberry and blackberry wines and jams. That came back to me and I decided to make jam as part of the recovery from my accident. I’ve always been into food, and I just found it was something I

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“I spent a lot of time cruising and I realised I knew most of the fruit along the canal banks” Summer 2020 16/04/2020 14:58

Roving traders

First sighting of Montgomery – the back cabin of which forms half of the Tidys’ trading butty.

for selling goods which include foraged ingredients) and, as a thank you, the couple make a donation each year to its work.

Meanwhile Andy has built a mental map of the fruit trees around the British waterways, “certainly very detailed within a 21-mile radius of Birmingham”. He explains: “Most of the time this fruit would just be left to rot as many people don’t know what to do with such an abundance. There are times when we’ve moored up and a local resident will spot what we’re selling and invite us to freely help ourselves to their garden’s harvest.”

Birth of the butty Andy, who previously worked in commercial banking for HSBC, does the books for Helen and was also a driving force behind the couple’s conversion in 2013 of a secondary craft to accommodate the business. He says: “Initially operating from a table at the stern of our 42ft boat, the limitations of this space soon became apparent. We toyed with the idea of buying a larger boat or stretching our current one, but then we thought why not operate from a second towed boat which would, of course, be called The Jam Butty?”

And that’s where the idea rested for a year or more. A few enquiries were made about having a short unpowered hull built, but none of the options really caught their imagination until they spotted Montgomery at Keith Ball’s yard at Stretton on the Shropshire Union Canal – 12ft of a reproduction horse-drawn Josher butty built by Keith over 20 years ago. Originally it was part of a short butty built to accompany an icebreaker tug, but the butty was later extended and then motorised with the original back cabin cut off. Its cabin had been kicking about the yard for years looking for a new home and when Andy explained what they wanted to do, Keith suggested joining it to an old iron BCN day-boat which had also been buried in weeds there for years.

Andy insists seeing the boats together was “love at first sight”. He continues: “It was exactly what we wanted. Better in fact, with that drop-dead gorgeous 5ft-high boatman’s cabin, and a 10ft hold built inside genuinely historic bows. It ticked all the boxes and then some – you just had to be able to look beyond the peeling paintwork and rusty metal!”

Trading challenges The butty, all 25ft of it, finally launched at Birmingham’s Floating Market in June 2014 and has subsequently toured much of the network, stopping at festivals and floating markets as well as opening ad hoc to sell preserves during their journeys to these events. It hasn’t all been plain sailing however, At a floating market in Birmingham.

as Helen’s health took another blow from cancer.

Andy recalls 2016 being a particularly quiet trading year as she underwent chemotherapy, although he still found time to take the boats to IWA’s Festival of Water at Pelsall. “It has a special place in my memory because apart from being very, very busy on my own (I was desperately selling off all the stock made before Helen fell ill), I was surrounded by a lovely set of people who helped me out more than I dared hope for – from making endless mugs of tea to including me as part of a scratch quiz team on the Friday night.”

In fact, the social scene, the couple agree, is one of the reasons IWA events are always such a joy to trade at. Andy remembers: “We also had a lovely weekend in Ware a couple of years ago when we attended the IWA gathering as a destination for our cross-London trip. We were the only trade boat and had a great time, being welcomed into the evening barbecue and the Sunday morning service on board the trip-boat.”

'Sanguine' Inevitably opportunities to meet up with IWA friends and trade from the towpath will be harder to come by this summer, as coronavirus tears up the roving trader rule book just as it has done other parts of ordinary life. But the couple are surprisingly sanguine about matters. Andy reflects: “There are some spooky parallels with Helen’s chemo year. That summer we had a season’s worth of preserve made and ready to sell during what was supposed to be a six-month floating sabbatical, and this year we again have a season of stock in the store room.

“With June and July events being cancelled on the Grand Union, it’s our hope that we will still be able to attend the IWA Worcester event – but we will have to wait and see. From the preserve perspective all is not lost – jams and chutneys do, by definition, keep so even if a large part of this trading year is wiped out, most of our stock will still be okay next summer.

Also, we can always attend a few Christmas events and probably move any short-dated stock (jams and marmalades) that way. It’s not the way we like to sell, but in some ways it takes us back to the days before The Jam Butty.”

In the meantime, to paraphrase the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, “The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday.” Only, while lockdown lasts, there’s no jam today.

Find out more wildsidepreserves.co.uk

The couple are keen to finally get moving again, and are booked into this year’s IWA Festival of Water.

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Olympic waterways

an olympian effort

Tokyo 2020 may not be happening, but London’s Games’ legacy offers boaters a sporting chance to cruise in the wake of athletics’ greatest...

A

s we head into an uncertain few months, there can be few better tonics than looking back on happier times, not least the golden summer of 2012 when, for a few weeks in July, the world’s best sports stars smashed records and set audience pulses racing – and inadvertently brought about a brand-new cruising ground.

Opened to boating traffic in 2016, some four years after the Games was wound up, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Waterways nevertheless owe a debt to the massive regeneration project focused on east London in the run-up to the event.

They comprise a previously hidden and derelict network of waterways known as the Bow Back Rivers – a 10-mile system feeding into the River Lee Navigation and the Thames and including City Mill River, Old River Lea, Bow Back River, Prescott Channel, Bow Creek, Channelsea River and Waterworks River.

Potted history The recorded history of the rivers dates back to Alfred the Great and the invasion of the Danes, when the River Lea was the border between England and Danelaw. During the Industrial Revolution the waterways played a major role in providing water to local industry, particularly in powering mills at Three Mills and City Mills. In the early 1930s major investment was injected into the Bow Backs to improve their ability to accommodate both floodwaters and navigation.

Waterworks River was significantly modified and two new locks constructed at City Mills and Carpenters Road.

The rivers had largely fallen into disuse by the mid-20th century, with the decline in both canal carrying and waterside industries. The 1968 Transport Act classified the Bow Backs as ‘Remainder Waterways’, effectively deeming them no longer viable for leisure or commercial use.

By the 1990s the waterway network threaded its way through a landscape of redundant industry and degraded sites with minimal visitor activity. The rivers were heavily silted and largely unnavigable while their structures, although intact, were derelict and unusable.

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Marshgate Lock on Bow Back River, demolished during the 1930s flood control project and replaced by City Mill Lock.

Regeneration In spite of this, the potential importance of the Bow Backs began to be recognised in the early 1990s when regeneration initiatives around Stratford started to emerge. In particular, the establishment of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link began the transformation in people’s attitudes towards this little-known part of London. However, it was the decision to host the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in the Lower Lea Valley which created by far the biggest boost and, importantly, a timetable, for regenerating the area.

In a short six-year period between 2005 and 2012 more than £50m of investment was made by various government agencies to transform the waterways of the Lower Lea Valley. The catalyst was the construction of a new lock and water control structure at Three Mills which has prevented tidal inundation into the Park, turning a 3.5-mile length of steepsided flood relief channel, with a tidal range between zero ordnance datum to over 4m, into a navigable watercourse integrated with the newly regenerated waterside, parklands, wetlands and wildlife areas.

Work included refurbishing an abandoned lock on City Mill River, rebuilding waterway walls and

Summer 2020 16/04/2020 14:59

Olympic waterways

London's new cruising ring without prior booking – the only exception to this being during major stadium events. Note that no stopping or mooring is allowed at the Stadium Island, with £150 fines for those who disobey and the potential for your boat to be “moved on” by CRT’s contractors District Enforcement Ltd. As well as this ‘turn-up-and-go’ circuit, two adjoining waterways, the Waterworks River and Three Mills Wall River, are also available to cruise by booking passage through Carpenters Road, towpath 8 City Mill or Three Mills railway 9 London Underground Lock in advance. You can London Overground 10 Docklands Light Railway do this by logging into Elsan and refuse point your CRT boating account pump out water point and finding the ‘book calor gas Stratford International 1 ArcelorMittal Orbit your passage’ option.

2 London Stadium Stratford 12 You’ll need to book at 3 Fish Island Labs 4 Carpenters Road Lock least seven days before 5 Queen’s Yard 6 Here East your travel and passage 7 North Park Paddle Hub Stratford High St is available from 9.30am 8 Lee Valley Hockey 13 and Tennis Centre to 4.30pm Monday to 9 Lee Valley VeloPark City Mill 10 Copper Box Arena Friday, except when Lock 11 Boat tours and pedalo hire Abbey Road the locks are closed for 12 London Aquatics Centre 13 The House Mill maintenance, events Ch r or unsafe weather Navigation West Ham conditions. Check CRT’s bookable access only Three Mills Lock no stopping/no mooring stoppages section on its low bridges max air draft 2.0m Bow Locks end of Canal & River Trust Navigation Bow Creek/ website for any planned - no motorised craft River Thames or emergency closures.

As part of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Waterways, boaters can experience one of the network’s newest cruising rings. Called the Stadium Island Loop, due to the route orbiting the 2012 Olympic stadium that now serves as West Ham FC’s home ground, it is reached from the Lee Navigation, below Old Ford Locks, and takes in parts of the Old River Lee, City Mill River and Bow Back River.

Officially opened in 2016, boaters can cruise the loop Tottenham

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towpaths, dredging deeper channels for commercial and leisure traffic, creating new wildlife habitats for birds and insects, installing infrastructure for trip-boats and establishing better, safer connections for walking and cycling.

In the south of the park, the waterways have a more urban feel – the legacy of the last major works programme in the 1930s and the construction of heavily engineered, man-made concrete channels. In the north of the park, the River Lea has been transformed to become a largely ecologically focussed, riverine environment with natural soft banks, wetlands and meandering footpaths through a rich valley landscape. The canals and rivers running through and adjacent to the park are now possibly the best connected waterways anywhere in the UK.

waterways closed once more for legacy transformation works to take place. The work hasn’t satisfied everyone, not least freight enthusiasts. But what were once the least glamorous waterways in Britain are now open for business, boasting a thoroughly modern makeover and still basking in the glory of having hosted one of our nation’s finest hours on their banks.

Building Carpenters Road Lock in the 1930s in the middle of the Old River Lea.

Olympics Millions of people visited the park during the period of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which provided a valuable insight into how people used and enjoyed the area and its waterways. The water clearly had a magnetising effect, not just on visitors but also on those watching at home on television.

Who can forget the moment David Beckham appeared aboard a speed boat on Waterworks River to hand over the Olympic Torch as part of the Opening Ceremony?!

After decades of Construction dwarfs boats on inactivity and decay, Waterworks River the Bow Back Rivers near City Mill Lock. revelled in this new lease of life, briefly opening their doors to stage the biggest sporting event in the world. For a few years after, however, boaters were left in frustrated limbo as the

Summer 2020 022-24 olympics SH2.indd 23

The Old River Lea now weaves past one of the world’s most iconic sporting venues.

IWA Waterways |

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Olympic waterways

Don't miss...

Roger Wilkinson, guide for IWA’s popular Towpath Walks initiative in London, picks out some overlooked non-sporting sights on the Olympic Waterways 1) All clear ahead!

Perhaps one of the most striking things on this route is actually what you won’t see! As well as the lack of moored boats, which are ubiquitous elsewhere in the capital, you might also notice the channel is clear of floating pennywort too. One of the Olympic Development Authority’s achievements before the Games was to dredge the Bow Back Rivers and remove this very troublesome invasive weed. Although it has reappeared on the Lee Navigation, there is very little on the Bow Back Rivers.

2) The Great British Garden (on the north bank, opposite the Stadium) Behind the line of trees along the bank of the Old River Lea is a hidden gem. In 2012, the Royal Horticultural Society ran a competition for amateur gardeners to design a bit of the Olympic Park. The planting in the Great British Garden includes three zones with the themes of Gold, Silver and Bronze. Don’t miss the human sundial in the silver area; you can tell the time on a sunny day by standing in the middle of it.

Green-fingered readers may also be interested in the wildflower meadows planted in a number of places around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Some can be seen on the slopes beside the Bow Back Rivers near Carpenters Road Lock.

3) Carpenters Road Lock Originally built in the early 1930s as part of a major public works scheme in the Bow Back Rivers, Carpenters Road Lock is the only one in the country with double radial gates. It was designed to be operable whether the water in the Waterworks River (then tidal, as well as a flood relief channel) was higher or lower than on the Lee Navigation. The weight of the radial gates was balanced by counterweights inside the side towers. This lock was manually operated (with a winding handle). Although commercial traffic through it probably ceased in the early 1950s, it continued to be useable until the end of the 1970s.

CRT succeeded in rebuilding it (now as an electrically powered lock) as closely as possible to the original design, and the counterweights can be seen moving when the gates open and close.

It was officially reopened in August 2017.

The towpath bridge near Carpenters Road Lock is also worth attention. Painted light blue and with raised cobbles in the paved The rebuilding of Carpenters Road Lock was an enormous task.

surface to provide better grip for horses’ hooves, it was built as part of the 1930s public works scheme.

4) The Orbit Tower The Orbit sculpture, Britain’s largest piece of public Consider art, is now home abseiling the to the world’s Orbit if the slide is too longest covered tame for you! slide. Designed

by German artist Carsten Höller, it is 178m long, and takes about 35 seconds to descend. It has proved to be very popular, and is sometimes booked up some time in advance.

Take note also of the construction works south of the Orbit sculpture, which are for UCL East. This will become a campus for UCL, with 4,000 students. There will be two student accommodation tower blocks (the first of which is due to be completed by autumn 2021) and a large research facility. It will be part of the East Bank – three locations in the Olympic Park which will form a culture and education district.

A narrowboat enters City Mill Lock.

5) City Mill Lock City Mill Lock was also built as part of the 1930s public works package, becoming unuseable and derelict many years ago.

British Waterways succeeded in obtaining the funds and restoring it, and it reopened in July 2010. It was built with gates facing both ways to cope with the tide.

This feature is still useful in the event of flood conditions on the Waterworks River; you’ll notice that the ‘tidemark’ on the gates is noticeably above the level of the water on the Bow Back Rivers.

The lock-keeper’s house (built in early 1930s) still exists.

Developers constructed new buildings very close to either end, but the dwelling (refurbished as part of the Olympics regeneration scheme) remains.

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IWA waterways |

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canals by

kayak Waterways talks paddling the inland waterways and beyond with WRG volunteer Helen Dobbie I've been kayaking on inland and coastal waters for about five years. A stint in the Territorial Army many years ago first introduced me to kayaking, but it was only once I’d been invited to a local canoe club by a friend more recently that I took up the sport as a hobby. I’d say I get out on the water a couple of times a month – as with anything like this, it’s not as much as I’d like. You have to have a balance between work, other hobbies and family responsibilities.

A club is a great way to learn because you can hire craft and go out as part of a group.

We meet once a week and go along the River Colne in Colchester. Initially, I’d pay to use one of the club boats for each session but then decided to get my own. I’ve now got two kayaks; I started with a hybrid one that’s suitable for inland waterways and some white waters, and then got another one that’s designed as a seagoing craft. The hybrid one lives on top of my narrowboat which is based on the River Stort.

Volunteering with the Waterway Recovery Group.

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River Stour at Dedham.

The inland waterways are definitely safer than the coast. I don’t particularly understand tides or wind but I go with people who do. I’m more comfortable on non-tidal waters but canals do still come with their challenges – there can be a lot of portages because of all the locks. My partner Mark, who lives on the coast, is happier with kayaking on the sea, so we do both. If you’re going to paddle on the coast, you really need to be prepared and it’s always recommended that you’re with a small group.

There’s lots of useful technology available these days – you can look online and get up to date information.

You need to make sure that, as a minimum, you've got a phone (or a Personal Locator Beacon when going to sea) as well as your kayak, paddle and buoyancy aid – that’s your starter kit. I’ve also got a helmet and a spray deck, although I don’t tend to use those while inland; it’s only if you’re going over weirs or in white water that you particularly need them. I did have a wetsuit but now I’ve got some rubber trousers, a decent waterproof kayaking jacket and gloves (or something called ‘pogies’ that fit over the paddles and you put your hands in). It’s not just about having a kayak, it’s also making sure, as with any hobby, that you’re prepared.

You need the right kit, especially if you’re going to go out when it’s wet and windy. I do canal restoration work and I wouldn’t go on site without my steeltoe-capped boots, high-vis vest, safety glasses and a hard hat.

Limehouse Basin in London.

Summer 2020 16/04/2020 15:01

Love Your Waterways

I belong to British Canoeing, which regularly holds paddle challenges. The one last summer was either 60 or 120 miles, and I completed the shorter distance. For the smaller winter challenge, which was in January and February this year, my partner and I did four 8-mile paddles. We kayaked to Bishop’s Stortford where there’s a nice little coffee shop that I went into while wearing my rubber trousers! We also did a coastal one when there wasn’t any wind – it was misty and really quite beautiful. I’d recommend finding a good tea room on your route or taking a flask of coffee with you if you’re paddling in the winter.

Mark on the River Stour.

My narrowboat is based on the Stort, so I've done a lot of paddling on the river around there. I’ve walked the length of the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation but I haven’t paddled it yet – we need to work out the logistics because it requires one car with roof bars for the kayaks and then another car to shuttle to the other end. Going with a canoe club makes it a bit easier because you can arrange transport with a few more people.

Last summer I did quite a lot on the Grand Union Canal, River Lea and the Olympic Park, which has some interesting portages, so it’s probably not for the inexperienced kayaker. We also went down to Cornwall and hired a couple of kayaks for the day, which was nice.

The most adventurous paddle I've done is the Thames Tideway. I’d previously experienced it on trip-boats and in a narrowboat from Limehouse to Brentford. The Thames Clippers are scary when you’re in a narrowboat; the guy leading the group had a VHF radio and was in contact with all the big boats – certainly when we were going through the bit near Tower Bridge which is quite busy with trip-boats, rubbish barges and private vessels. With the canoe club, we went from Battersea to Greenwich, which was incredible. When you’re in a kayak, it gives you a different view of the river to when you’re walking the With the swans on the Stour.

River Lea in London.

path or on a narrowboat. It’s definitely a journey you have to paddle as part of a group – not one for just setting off on your own to do.

There are still quite a few places on my bucket list. I want to do the Caledonian Canal in Scotland and I’m not likely to get my narrowboat up there so it would be perfect for kayaking.

We’ve looked into doing it as a camping trip as there are places that you can overnight along the canal and we reckon it would take around four or five days.

I love being outdoors, appreciating the countryside and enjoying the wildlife. Recently, when it was too windy to go out on the coast, we headed onto the River Stour again. Going round some of the corners, we kept getting blown across the water so we’d have to go backwards, come at it from a different angle and paddle like mad. So sometimes you go back home and you’re absolutely knackered.

I've been volunteering with the Waterway Recovery Group since before I bought the narrowboat in 1991 and have been an assistant leader on a few week-long canal camps on the Chelmer. I do it for similar reasons to the kayaking – being outdoors, contributing to the waterways, and always having an amazing mix of people to share the experience with.

What does Love Your Waterways mean to me?

I think being on the water and outdoors grounds people, helps them to slow down a bit and connect to nature. I particularly like watching all the water birds – they’re very territorial at this time of year. I would say to anyone who is thinking of kayaking: get out and try it. Do it as part of a club and make sure that you’ve got the necessary safety gear. Just give it go!

Summer 2020 026-27 LYW AH.indd 27

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restoration HUB: What biodiversity means for the waterways Canals connect many habitats that need to be considered when restoration works are being planned.

Managing impacts on biodiversity has long been part of infrastructure development. However, with the huge amounts of money promised by Government over the coming years for such Protecting wildlife habitats is a key part of development. areas as road and rail transport, housing, energy, flood defence and communications, the potential for devastating consequences for the environment has become very real. Declarations on the joint climate and biodiversity crisis by private and public sector organisations escalated during 2019, placing biodiversity loss, and the need to address it, at the centre of political and public discussions.

The question now being asked is: how do we improve infrastructure while protecting, and ideally enhancing, biodiversity? A new approach called Biodiversity Net Gain looks to be the answer.

What is BNG? The concept of BNG is simple: it is development that leaves biodiversity in a measurably better state than before. It requires a shift from an ‘infrastructure versus nature’ approach, to one where infrastructure is designed, built and maintained in ways that benefit our environment.

Some major industry players have made voluntary commitments to BNG, including Highways England, housing developers such as Berkeley Homes and Barratt Homes, and water companies like South West Water. There are also local planning authorities stipulating BNG, including Warwickshire

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and Lichfield. Government is now catching up and last year published the Environment Bill’s policy statement setting out a mandatory approach to BNG for development in England. Also, Natural England issued the Biodiversity Metric 2.0 for measuring losses and gains in biodiversity from development.

Good practice To help address the challenge of how to adopt a combined ‘infrastructure and nature’ approach, leading environmental institutes, including the Chartered Institute of Ecology & Environmental Management, Construction Industry Research & Information Association, and Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment, have published Biodiversity Net Gain: Good Practice Principles for Development. These principles provide a framework for achieving BNG and are relevant to the construction industry, local authorities, NGOs, landowners and land managers. They have been widely cited as a benchmark for good practice, and

Summer 2020 16/04/2020 15:02

restoration hub

Inclusion of Biodiversity Net Gain can be expected within all aspects of waterways restoration.

guidance to support their implementation has also been published.

The only issue is that these principles are very hard to apply to waterways restoration. A canal or river project is long, thin and not confined to one distinct area, as most construction projects are. Waterways can extend through many different environments and the calculation for measuring losses and gains becomes much more complex.

IWA has issued separate guidance for use by restoration societies and trusts to explain the details of BNG. However, it is only as BNG becomes embedded in the planning system that we will really understand how to apply it to restoration.

How does BNG affect waterways restoration?

Biodiversity Net Gain will fundamentally change the way we approach waterway restoration in the future. Where previously biodiversity and the environment would have been an afterthought or a nice ‘added extra’, BNG will require developers and construction organisations to put them at the heart of all activities from project inception to ongoing aftercare.

This means restoration groups will need to reassess current activities and strategies to cater for the eventual inclusion of BNG within the planning framework. Traditionally, developers might have sought to mitigate the loss of habitat caused by their project by creating/adding/offsetting other habitats, often in localities away from the ecological footprint of their project; BNG will require them to ensure habitats are replaced on a like-for-like basis. For example, replacing a river with a woodland just won’t do anymore. Woodland should be replaced by woodland and, where possible, enhancement measures added.

Sometimes a like-for-like approach is not always possible and in these cases, the project should look at ‘trading up’, which means taking a low priority habitat, like amenity grassland, and converting it into a priority habitat, like a reed bed.

Restorations will need to consider some key points when habitat trading to: ■ Avoid losing biodiversity that cannot be offset ■ Ensure the gains exceed the area lost ■ Deliver a project that goes beyond current obligations ■ Ensure the trade makes sense and achieve the best possible outcomes for biodiversity ■ Think carefully about the role that the existing habitat plays and that the habitat trade delivers the same needs for species present ■ Make sure the trade is possible and can be achieved.

Not all habitats are created equal

Size, designation, connectivity and protected and invasive species all play a part in the calculations for new habitats. Of these, connectivity is of particular interest to waterways restorations due to their linear nature. They have the potential to link habitats that were not previously connected, and the effects of this will need to be taken into account.

Where possible, compensation measures should be applied on site or as close as possible to the location of the development works. Net gain should contribute towards priorities set out in local authority plans and other governing documents, with an emphasis on the features affected by the development.

The sorts of features that restorations will need to consider when thinking about the location for mitigating projects include: ■ Soil characteristics ■ National/local populations

Summer 2020 028-29 restoration hub AH.indd 29

Habitats affected by development should be replaced on a likefor-like basis.

Connectivity Foraging opportunities Refuge Barriers Proximity to urban areas Strategic location For a restoration that is 25 miles long, these sorts of calculations could become immensely complex.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

The cost to restoration Responsibility to meet BNG falls under a number of key roles during the project lifecycle, and there needs to be ongoing management within the habitat for up to 30 years after the works have been completed.

Restorations will have to measure, record and report if each habitat is meeting the net gain outcomes set out in the project plans. Future management can be passed onto a third party, such as a statutory nature conservation organisation, local authority or charity group, but budgets and support must be taken into consideration to allow this to happen.

Restorations will be able to put BNG costs into funding bids, as grant-giving organisations are now looking at ensuring the environment is fully accounted for within their funded projects. The cost implications for restorations, however, may be considerable.

Thankfully, restoration groups would not be expected to independently review the biodiversity value of the canal route. This would most likely be left to a qualified ecologist to ascertain the pre- and postconstruction biodiversity levels, involving a further cost to the restoration.

Opportunities Despite the potential costs to restoration groups, there are opportunities for waterways projects to present themselves as the net gain benefit for other infrastructure developments. Very often, canal restoration trusts and societies own or manage the land through which their restorations run, and developers working within these areas may be looking for sites and projects that could support their own BNG projects.

As BNG becomes mandatory, restoration groups could find themselves in the happy situation of being asked to support developers in the provision of mitigation measures. In providing such measures, the waterways organisations may ask the developer for some support in exchange, and this could in turn benefit the progress of the restoration. A win for the environment and for restoration!

For a copy of IWA’s Biodiversity Net Gain guidance note, visit waterways.org.uk/biodiversity.

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To advertise here please contact Jake Tyers

V 01283 742977 aj.tyers@wwonline.co.uk

Contact: Jake Tyers, IWA Waterways, 151 Station Street, Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire DE14 1BG | Next issue deadline: 17th July 2020

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ies

fficer

YEAR OF THE

VOLUNTEER

Don’t be daunted by the prospect of getting stuck in. In this, the second of our volunteer focus features, we chat to two people who have just started out in their volunteering roles, to hear their first impressions and how they feel they’re fitting in…

Job Description:

Heritage Officer A heritage officer works with branches to encourage an appreciation of the heritage of our inland waterways in the widest sense: buildings, navigation structures, boats, skills and traditions, people and archives. The role includes producing and maintaining a list of remaining heritage sites, and supporting branches in campaigns for their retention. An officer will also campaign to prevent developments whose scale or character will have an adverse impact on the appearance of the waterways.

Equally important is developing relationships with local historical and heritage groups to raise awareness of the importance of waterway heritage, and working with the national Heritage Advisory Panel and navigation authorities to protect this.

How long have you been in the role?

Since February 2019.

What attracted you to it?

I became aware of the position while reading the regional chairman’s (Paul Strudwick’s) column in the quarterly magazine Meridian Cuttings. I met Paul in my early membership days at a branch meeting, when we struck up a conversation concerning the financing of restoration projects. I saw this as a golden opportunity to work alongside Paul and other seasoned personnel within IWA.

Had you ever volunteered before taking on this position?

No. However, within a short space of time I was co-opted on the South London Branch Committee, and then discovered (by email) that I’m a member of the national Heritage Advisory Panel. So within a few months I found I was involved at branch, regional and national level!

How many hours do you spend on the role per week?

Case Study:

Derek Humphries London Region Heritage Officer

with wide-ranging knowledge and expertise and I particularly enjoy attending meetings, learning from others and feeling that I’m making a contribution.

What have your first impressions been?

To help me on my way, Paul Strudwick compiled a ‘job description’ (see abridged synopsis above). I admit to having felt quite daunted by the prospect, as this position was a new one within IWA. However, in the early days Paul and I worked together to look at aspects of recording and mapping heritage data. And since becoming a branch committee member for south London, I have also received ceaseless support from our branch chairman Libby Bradshaw.

What's been your biggest achievement in the role to date?

One of my first objectives was to discover what heritage exists within the London region. It’s a huge patch and not easily researched by cycling all the towpaths! So I began by looking at a digital representation of the waterways instead, to ascertain the number of principal features (locks, bridges, aqueducts etc).

The London region has about 200 miles of waterway, depending how much of the Thames estuary you include.

It varies from week to week. If I have a specific project in hand then I throw all my spare time at it, which could total around 25 hours a week. Otherwise five hours is more typical.

Have there been any challenges so far making space for the role in your normal routine?

Prior to taking on this role, I was editor of a weekly waterways travelogue, which was enormously time consuming. At the end of the 2019 cruising season I put this to one side to make more room for IWA matters.

What do you enjoy about it?

I have a keen interest in the historic development of our waterways, so for me this role is a perfect fit. IWA is full of people

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Listed Grade II: Bulbourne Yard on the Grand Union near Tring is an important historic site on the canal network, comprising a unique collection of canalside workshops, offices and dwellings. The site was historically used for the construction of lock gates and other waterway infrastructure.

Summer 2020 16/04/2020 15:04

Year of the volunteer but Covid-19 got in the way. Once the national crisis subsides, I hope to visit the remaining five branches within the region with a view to getting more members involved.

Unlisted: Paddington Basin Warehouses, now used as outbuildings for St Mary’s Hospital. These 19thcentury storage sheds are one of the few remnants of heritage among the swathe of high-rise office blocks.

How does it play to your strengths?

I then consulted Historic England’s website and, by trawling up and down the region’s waterways, I identified over 400 listed structures either on or immediately adjacent to them. In the majority of cases I was also able to identify a photo for each heritage site. Historic England classes structures as Grades I, II*, II and Scheduled Monuments; the London Region has all of these. An obvious example of a Grade I structure would be the Houses of Parliament, whereas a Scheduled Monument would include the lock flight at Hanwell on the Grand Union Canal.

I was asked by my branch chairman to give a presentation of this research at one of our social evenings last November. I was due to present it again to a London region audience in March,

I’m good at applying a methodical approach and giving attention to detail. This trait has proved useful in my past careers as a cartographer and IT consultant, and is just as helpful in my current IWA role.

What type of person would the role suit?

Anyone with a self-motivating passion for history, heritage, conservation, environment, culture etc.

Derek is IWA’s first heritage officer and we would very much like to see more volunteers come forward to carry out this role in other parts of the country. If you are interested please email iwa@waterways.org.uk.

While this is good news for the waterways, and wouldn’t have been possible without IWA’s input over the years, it also poses challenges for us, especially in terms of attracting new members and volunteers. I wanted to help address this.

Job Description:

IWA Trustee The role of a trustee is set down in the Charity Commission guidelines for all charities, large or small. A well-balanced board of trustees will have a wide range of knowledge and skill sets available to ensure good governance and soundness of the organisation. They are responsible for the determination and delegation of the powers necessary to deliver the charity’s core objectives and to ensure that feedback mechanisms are in place and used to monitor the effectiveness of the organisation.

The role of the trustee does not directly extend to management of the Association, although many trustees are also involved in management or as active volunteers.

What's been your biggest achievement in the role to date?

Alongside some other trustees, we worked to persuade Paul Rodgers to stand as national chairman. Recognising the need for IWA to re-focus, we believed this task would require younger and more dynamic leadership; someone who is very much of today and still immersed in a successful career. Sensibly, Paul made it very clear that he would only accept the role with the commitment of a close support team; I am flattered to be one of his three deputy chairs along with Rick Barnes and Chris Howes.

Have there been any challenges so far?

Case Study:

Dave Chapman IWA Trustee

How long have you been in the role?

It was only in 2019, at the tender age of 76, that I sought the necessary support from the membership to become an IWA trustee.

What attracted you to it?

It was and is my view that IWA had become a victim of its own success; after several years of direct action and campaigning to stop the neglect and destruction of the canal network by successive governments, the first canal restorations groups were started to reverse the previous years of decline. As readers will be aware, restoration societies and trusts can now be found throughout the UK. Then in 2012, after 75 years of campaigning, we saw the launch of Canal & River Trust, which has since run a very successful campaign to build its ‘Friends’ and volunteer programmes.

Summer 2020 032-33 volunteering SH2.indd 33

Anyone who has been involved in changing an organisation will know that it’s not easy; we have only just started. The impact of coronavirus is an added, unwelcome complication. However, we are learning new ways to communicate with members, including hosting branch AGMs online. Perhaps coronavirus has a silver lining then. It’s certainly pushing us to try new techniques far faster than we could have thought possible three months ago.

Members who saw technology as coming from an alien life form are now actively seeking ways in which they can use it.

Had you ever volunteered before taking on this position?

My wife, Beryl, and I have been members of IWA since 1973, having bought our first boat, a 16ft marine-ply Dolphin cruiser in 1970.

Like many members, during the time we were building careers and bringing up children our support for IWA was via membership fees and donations only. It was only after retirement, in 2003, that I started to volunteer at IWA festivals. In 2013, I joined Chiltern Branch committee and was asked to be their chairman – a role I still enjoy today.

How many hours do you spend on the role per week?

It varies, but is probably less than a couple of hours a week. That some of us do more, is where we are also involved beyond the duties of being a trustee.

IWA Waterways |

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2020 Waterways Awards

Calling all nominations for IWA's 2020 Waterways Awards

E

ach year IWA’s Waterways Awards recognise the outstanding contributions made by our volunteers and those of restoration groups and waterways organisations across the UK. It’s the Association’s way of saying thank you for the dedication and hard work given by our teams and individuals across the country. We know the time of the volunteers is offered willingly, and not for reward, but if you are aware of an individual, group or team to whom you would like to give a very public and heartfelt demonstration of your appreciation, please take a look at the categories below and submit your nomination.

To make your nomination Send an email to awards@waterways.org.uk.

Provide your name and telephone number, the name of the individual, group or team you are nominating and describe in 200-300 words who they are, what they have done and why you are nominating them. The deadline for nominations this year is 31st May.

AWARD CATEGORIES Richard Bird Medals

Cyril Styring Trophy

Awarded to individuals who have brought significant benefits to IWA over a sustained period of time. Each year between six and eight Richard Bird Medals are presented to volunteers from across the Association.

This is the Association’s premier award, given to an individual IWA member who has made an outstanding contribution to furthering IWA campaigns.

John Heap Salver Awarded to an IWA member who has made an outstanding contribution to raising funds for the Association. The trophy, a silver salver, was provided by then IWA Trustee John Heap (who subsequently became National Chairman) and first presented at the Association’s National Rally at Marple on the Peak Forest Canal.

Ian McDonald was a Richard Bird Medal recipient in 2019.

The judges The national awards are decided by trustees following the recommendations of an Awards Panel that is chaired by IWA vice president and former national chairman Audrey Smith, OBE. She is supported by Ray Carter, National Treasurer, John Baylis, BEM, former deputy national chairman and WRG director for 40 years. All are past recipients of the Cyril Styring Trophy, the Audrey Smith OBE received the Cyril Styring Trophy from Association’s most Ivor Caplan in 2018. prestigious award.

Summer 2020 34 | IWA Waterways 034 LYW awards AH2.indd 34

Awarded to an individual, society or trust that has made the most significant contribution to the restoration of an inland waterway.

There is a cash prize of £1,000 associated with this accolade, which is given to the winning waterway restoration group (or the group to which an individual winner is associated).

CCT chair Jim White accepted the Christopher Power Prize in 2018 on behalf of the Cotswold Canals Trust.

MIKE GALLAGHER, COTSWOLD CANALS TRUST

Christopher Power Prize

IWA Branch Achievement Award This award is given to the Branch that has made the greatest progress in promoting IWA’s aims and objectives over the past year. The panel for this award consists of the National Chairman, Deputy National Chairmen and Chief Executive. The prize consists of a silver salver, donated to IWA by former National Chairman David Stevenson in 1998.

IWA North Staffordshire & South Cheshire Branch received the Branch Award in 2019.

IWA Waterways Summer| 2020 34 20/04/2020 10:53

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