Winter stoppages on the canal system.
With winter fast approaching its time to pre plan our journeys around the waterways. One of the most attractive things about boating is the freedom, not everyone has the advantage of being able to take off on an adventure with a drop of a hat. Unfortunately, during the winter this could be difficult with many things standing in your way, one of them being the winter Canal and River Trust stoppages.
As many of you may know the CRT every winter release multiple stoppage’s along with canal network to improve the canals we all enjoy! The stoppages normally take place over winter when there are less boats traveling the network, most boat owners choose to moor their narrowboat at a marina or at one of CRT canal side moorings over the winter.
Canal and River Trust carry out these essential repairs and maintenance to the canals to improve the services available to the narrowboat community and to help the network run efficiently as possible. With narrowboats coming more and more popular canals are under a lot of pressure to work smoothly, with this in mind CRT strategically close areas along the canal network for repairs over winter, this will result in the towpaths, locks and canal closed for a few days or weeks.
Don’t worry CRT always give you plenty of notice before they start work on a certain lock, towpath or bridge. The charity consults people who use the waterways to make sure these stoppages cause as little disruption as possible, but we always recommend when planning a trip preparedness is key, it’s always a good idea to check online for any stoppages that could affect your journey. If navigation closures occur it’s much better to know in advance!
CRT make it easy for to plan your route and search for stoppages on the way, the website is always kept up to date with notices going out if anything changes. The website contains an interactive map of the canals where you can search for your local area to find the type of disruption, from then you can navigate onto the correct page for the stoppage local to yourself to read all about the problems you may occur.
Current winter 2020 stoppages
Please be aware accidents do occur and unfortunately there will be stoppages all year round to improve broken locks, fallen trees, water levels when water levels become too shallow for passage. Its always best to keep an eye on the news page of the CRT website