Canal Boat – July 2018

canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat July 2018 13

NEWS SPECIAL

operated road liftbridges (Twechar and

Bonnybridge) on the central section of the

Forth & Clyde Canal, as a result of failure of

mechanisms installed at the time of the

reopening – with apparently no funds

available for repairs. These were followed by

failure of a traditional footpath liftbridge in

Knightswood, Glasgow, cutting off the

navigable routes from the city to both the

Forth and the Clyde. IWA wrote to SC,

describing the closures as ‘unacceptable’.

A campaign group formed of 11 Scottish

waterway organisations has taken this

further. The Keep Canals Alive campaign,

which includes canal societies, boat operators

and boating organisations, has written to all

seven local authorities on the route, calling on

them to press SC to fulfil its obligations to

keep the canals open.

The open letter was penned by Ronnie

Rusack MBE, well-known Scottish canal

supporter and leading light of the restoration

campaigns for the Union and Forth & Clyde

restorations. He said: “After 47 years of

campaigning for the Lowland canals I’m not

prepared to allow them to deteriorate any

further”. Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, he

said: “I’m frightened they’re going to close the

canals: gradually run them down and close

them. It’s getting bad. They’ve not been

dredging. The maintenance has gone down all

the time.”

In the letter, Keep Canals Alive highlights

the closures, expresses fears of a threat to jobs

in the hireboat operation and to canalside

businesses, and says that SC “has not

maintained the canals adequately”. The

proportion of its budget spent on basic

maintenance has fallen by one third, it adds,

resulting in numerous failures, while staff

cuts mean that some lengths are only open

one day per week – and appear “virtually

disused again”. Meanwhile, the letter says,

none of the money that SC raises from

canalside developments finds its way into the

maintenance budget.

The letter points out that local councils

paid £7.2m towards the restoration, and calls

on them to press SC to adjust its budgets to

meet its statutory maintenance

responsibilities – not to stop investing in

canalside developments, but to “realign

priorities to ensure that the canals do not

return to the dreadful state they were in

before the Millennium. We are asking for a

review of new canal developments – some of

which have new opening bridges – until SC is

able to maintain the bridges it already has”.

In response, Falkirk Council was due to

debate a motion supporting the campaign and

calling on those who funded the reopenings

to urge SC to comply with its obligations to

keep the canals open. And the issue has

reached the Scottish Government, with

parliamentary questions tabled by the

Scottish Conservatives, who pointed out that

a freedom of information request had

revealed that 35 holiday hireboat bookings

had already been cancelled so far this year,

and expressed fears that tourism would suffer

if the canals were “left to rot”.

But SC Chairman Andrew Thin countered

that the canal was still open “to 99.9 per cent”,

when counting all the users besides boaters,

said that SC was “generating more self-earned

income for reinvestment in the nation’s inland

waterways than it receives in Grant In Aid

from the Scottish Government”, and defended

its Chief Executive Steve Dunlop from “being

castigated for alleged failure” after “the

bearings and hydraulics fail on a couple of

18-year-old mechanical bridges”. And a

spokesman for SC said that “the vast majority

of canal users, from runners and walkers to

cyclists and kayakers, will be completely

unaffected by these restrictions.”

Ronnie Rusack isn’t convinced by that. He

quotes the Scottish Government’s own policy

paper Making the most of Scotland’s Canals,

which says “Boats add colour and interest to

the canals. We wish to see further growth in

the numbers of boats navigating our canals,

and encourage both Scottish Canals, boaters

and other parties to work together towards

exploiting opportunities to achieve this.”

SC insists that “we are committed to

bringing these bridges back into operation as

quickly as possible”, and that “by generating

our own income to reinvest in the canals, we

are working towards a long term financially

sustainable future”. However it also cautions

that “with ageing assets, the impact of climate

change and the increasing popularity of

Scotland’s canals, we don’t have the money to

do all we need to do” – adding that there is a

£70m backlog of repair and maintenance

work on its canals.

In the meantime, arrangements were made

in early May for the first restricted openings

of the three affected liftbridges for boaters

needing to move their craft. But SC has made

it clear that the state of the lifting gear means

that in the case of Bonnybridge Bridge, this is

a one-off with no future openings until funds

can be secured for full repair.

Twechar liftbridge: funds needed for full repairs

The Forth & Clyde Canal before restoration

The Falkirk Wheel: crowning achievement in 2002

Knightswood bridge, Glasgow, before closures prevented craft from making sea-to-sea journeys