Yesterday, in the early hours, there was a breach in the Llangollen canal embankment at Whitchurch in Shropshire. Note: not a sinkhole as stated on the mainstream media.
This was probably the most serious breach yet, because two boats were sucked into the breach and ended up at the bottom of the embankment.
Luckily there was no loss of life. The boat owners affected were able to get off their floating homes just before they went over the edge.
But this is the third major breach this year amongst a number of other smaller breaches/leaks.
Hopefully the fact that this time it came close to loss of life it will start to focus the minds of those responsible to start to reverse the trend.
After all we have had the following major breaches in the past four years:
Leeds and Liverpool Canal 2021
Lancaster Canal 2024
Bridgewater Canal January 2025
Macclesfield Canal March 2025
Llangollen Canal December 2025
Those are the major breaches, but the Macclesfield canal suffered at least two further serious leak repairs, which if not repaired could have caused serious breaches.
The common theme amongst these being the failure of a culvert under a canal embankment.
In previous years, breaches were a rare thing. Even in the dark days of neglect and almost closure, the canals very rarely breached in a major way.
So, what has changed? Are people missing the signs of a breach? Were the canal workers of old better at spotting the signs? Are repairs not being carried out quickly enough?
Is there something in the canals that is causing the breaches?
Is it a lack of maintenance?
Is it a "not my job" problem?
Is it a lack of Money?
Let me explain.
1. Is it something Causing the Breaches?
As I've said, back in the 70s, at the height of the neglect of the canal system, we never got the number of breaches we are getting now. So is the canal network experiencing a new phenomenon?
Is there something introduced to the canals that has introduced a higher risk of breaches? For instance, the signal Crayfish is a relatively new invasive species that has been introduced into the waterways of the UK. It was introduced in the 70s and has spread across the waterways of the UK over the decades. It burrows quite deeply into the banks of the waterway.
Is that burrowing causing a higher risk of failure to our canals? Either through burrowing into the banks of the canal itself, or burrowing into the culverts that run underneath the canal embankments.
Is the burrowing not being detected during maintenance?
The rumour is, the Whitchurch embankment and it's culvert were only inspected a few weeks ago. So is burrowing into the culvert by crayfish not being spotted?
2. Is it a lack of Maintenance?
Well, as I just noted, the Whitchurch embankment and culvert were inspected recently. But was that inspection thorough enough? Has something changed that makes the inspection not thorough enough, like changes to the safety regime? i.e. are workers not allowed to crawl into culverts?
But the inspections are being done, it seems. But are defects reported and dealt with in a timely manner?
Again, knowing the issues involved, repairs to culverts require confirmation with the Environment Agency, the body in charge of rivers and streams. Repairs require planning, impact assessments, risk assessments, etc. A whole raft of "stakeholders" from the various agencies like English Heritage (if the stretch of canal or included infrastructure is listed), the Environment Agency (If a stream or river is involved), maybe National Grid or British Telecom if the towpath carries power lines or network cables and last but not least local landowners (possibly different either side of the canal).
You can see that the number of agencies that need to be consulted explodes and makes maintenance difficult. Is that causing drag on the number of projects being raised and completed?
After all, it's easier to keep your mouth shut and kick the can down the road to the next inspection, hopefully nothing dire will happen in the meantime....
3. Is it a "Not My Job" Problem?
Is the job too problematic? Is ignoring issues and kicking the can down the road a real problem? Are CRT staff just ignoring defects or are they being told to ignore them, or are they told to only report the most major of defects when in the past minor defects would have been reported and assessed?
Or is it that in some instances, Canal and River Trust aren't responsible for maintenance of parts of infrastructure? For instance with culverts and Aqueducts, are the rivers and streams that run under the canal the responsibility of the Environment Agency and not Canal and River Trust? If so, do the EA put priority on maintaining CRT infrastructure?
Do CRT pass defects to EA and the EA sit on them?
Are independent contractors being used to make the inspections and they are missing critical failures of infrastructure?
Certainly it's quite common in the UK for a third party to be responsible and not do the job. The UK management structure when it comes to the various agencies is so messed up that it wouldn't surprise me that some completely unrelated agency is causing the problem.
4. Is it a Lack of Money?
Well, there is a case to say that the huge project to repair the dam on the Toddbrook reservoir that almost burst it's banks back in 2019 has drained CRT of funds and those funds have been withdrawn from maintenance of the Northern Canals. and that's causing the issue.
Except for the fact that the Bridgewater Canal is not owned by CRT. It's owned by Peel Holdings.
So the same problem is affecting canals owned by two different entities. Which seems to suggest the problem of failing culverts and embankment breaches is independent of the ownership of the canals.
Which then suggests that the signal crayfish issue may be valid, or maybe both companies use the same contractors to make inspections and it's them that are failing. Or in both instances a third party, like the Environment Agency are failing to maintain watercourses under their control.
What needs to Happen?
Well, it's clear that the risk of canal breaches has increased. I know of one leak in Llangollen itself . I don't know if it has been fixed, but one of the houses at the bottom of an embankment on the Llangollen canal has had a problem with water from the canal for a number of years.
There needs to be some sort of enquiry. This issue is now widespread and not confined to canals owned by a single company. The problem is endemic and getting worse. This time it was only by luck that no-one was killed. The boats that have been destroyed can be replaced. People can't.
At some point, there will be a loss of life. If this latest breach isn't a sign to the various canal owners that something needs to happen to assess what is causing these breaches, then I don't know what will be. I guess we'll have to wait for someone to be killed and a huge lawsuit
I mean, a simple thing would be to assess the number of signal crayfish in certain waterways. If it's understood they burrow into the banks of the canals, shouldn't there be an assessment of if that increases the risk of breaches? Then, if it's identified that the crayfish are in an area where the risk of breach is high, they can be eradicated from that area to protect the canal infrastructure.
If it's an inter-agency thing, then legislation needs to be requested to force the requisite agency to act, or act faster.
Bu it seems that nothing is being done to investigate the rise in the number of breaches, or the cause.
It seems as I've always conjectured, that climate change is used as an excuse to do nothing proactive. In other words, it's the climate (and we're not going to even bother to confirm that theory, or to look for other mechanisms that may be causing the problem).
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