Features

August 2018 - The first boater organisation – and so far the only one – to challenge the Environment Agency’s plans to hike boat registration fees by between 10 per cent and 5.7 per cent per year for three years is the National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA), as Alec Wood reports

August 2018 - The sheer scale of the closures and restrictions, both drought-related and the physical failures of the network’s structures has been brought home in Canal & River Trust’s usually chirpy and lightweight Boater’s update, as Peter Underwood observes.

August 2018 - The impact of the drought is steadily moving south to impact on increasingly large areas of the system, with London the latest as the rivers feeding the Grand Union and Paddington Arm drying up.

August 2018 - After earning negative national publicity for its bid to raise the price of London moorings in a series of price hikes more than four times the rate of inflation, as well as now facing a threat of a serious legal challenge, it seems Canal & River Trust is having a rethink.

August 2018 - Canal & River Trust is conducting a massive charm offensive to bring more of the public to the canals, with large scale spending on advertising and social media, as part of it’s bid for replacement government cash once the current grant ends, on the basis that it is enhancing th

July 2018 - Canal & River Trust has some good news for northern boaters with the announcement that the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Melling should be reopened by mid August, clearing the route into Liverpool after nearly two months of closure, Peter Underwood reports.

July 2018 - Boaters on the The Thames, the Medway and the East Anglian Rivers are facing massive increases from the Environment Agency as it strives to get boat owners to pay more as the Treasury starves it of cash for navigations, as Peter Underwood reports.

July 2018 - When C&RT demanded The Floater stopped asking it difficult questions back in May it is fair to say we didn’t exactly do as the charity demanded.

July 2018 - Just at the time when C&RT’s whole future is balanced on it being able to show it improves the well-being of more and more non-boating canal visitors there is a distinct downward trend in numbers visiting the system, as Allan Richards has discovered.

July 2018 - The Canal & River Trust is celebrating what it describes as “some of the fantastic work carried out by its staff and volunteers over the past year” with the presentation of its annual Waterways Alive Awards at the Anderton Boat Lift, as Peter Underwood reports.