Tuesday 16 November
Today's news from the web
- From the Archives: When canals were venue for death birminghammail.net
Birmingham has famously more miles of canal than Venice. Today, the canal network is a big pull in the leisure industry with boaters travelling the waterways. But more than 125 years ago the story was totally different. Then, the city was at the hub of a national canal network congested with barges transporting goods around the country. It also proved to be a suitable point for suicide and murder......
Saturday 13 November
Today's news from the web
- British Waterways: Scotland: 11 Nov 2010: Written answers and statements theyworkforyou.com
Richard Benyon: When British Waterways in England and Wales becomes a charitable body, its non-operational property portfolio will transfer to the new body. The Scottish Executive has decided that British Waterways Scotland will remain in the public sector and use the existing legal structure to exercise its functions solely in relation to Scotland. Scottish assets will continue to be managed by British Waterways Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Executive. We will be discussing with the Scottish Executive and British Waterways other issues relating to assets....
- Sell-out crowd enjoys first SW Herts Narrowboat Project concert in Abbots Langley watfordobserver.co.uk
The first in a series of winter acoustic concerts held in partnership with the South West Herts Narrowboat Project has taken place. In front of a sell-out audience at Abbots Langley Community Centre, the season began with a canal themed performance entitled “Where the Working Boats Went”, by Bedfordshire duo “Life and Times” - Barry Goodman and Graeme Meek. Based on canal facts and stories, the piece included songs all presented as a dialogue between two boatmen, and illustrated by old photographs of the canals. ...
- New towpath on the River Lee waterscape.com
Improvement works to upgrade a section of towpath along the River Lee Navigation started in July this year. The work was part funded with a grant of £250,000 from the London Borough of Hackney. As well as up-grading 150 metres of towpath, DDA compliant access ramps have been installed near the Kingshead footbridge and the river bank walls were repaired with the addition of special areas created within the new brick work to provide permanent nesting sites for rare birds, such as sand martins, known to visit this area of London. ...
- Hundreds ask council for £200,000 to turn Cromford Canal into tourist draw thisisderbyshire.co.uk
Hundreds of people have signed a petition calling for a stretch of a Derbyshire waterway to be cleaned up so it can be used by tourists and school children. Friends of Cromford Canal has more than 650 signatures from people urging Derbyshire County Council to help foot the estimated £200,000 bill for dredging of the three-quarters-of-a-mile stretch. Chairman of the group Patrick Morriss said the charity wanted to use the canal to run a horse-drawn boat during school holidays. At other times the boat would be used as a "floating classroom" for school parties ...
Friday 12 November
Webchat with British Waterways' Tony Hales and Simon Salem
On Thursday 11th November we hosted a live online debate with Tony Hales, chairman of British Waterways, and marketing director Simon Salem about BW's plans to become a charity - now officially endorsed by Government and set to take effect in April 2012. You can replay the debate here. Thanks to everyone who took part.Richard Fairhurst | 10.11am | add a comment
Today's news from the web
- Mother and daughter rescued from River Kennet bog kacanaltimes.blogspot.com
The Chiltern Air Support Unit were there overseeing the rescue and there is a link to their film of the rescue below. A mother and daughter were rescued after getting into difficulty in a bog beside the River Kennet while walking their dog at the weekend. They were walking near the river close to Rose Kiln Lane in Reading when the mother fell over in the mud. Her daughter went to help her and rapidly began to sink. She was up to her chest in the mud with her mother lying next to her when the emergency services got to them after they were located by the police helicopter....
- Pesticide companies told to fund clean up of waterways theecologist.org
Coalition of environmental groups including RSPB and the National Trust urge government to introduce a levy on chemical industry and enforce bigger fines for polluters The pesticide industry should pay towards reducing pollution of waterways as well as creating clean water habitats to offset some of the damage caused by the use of its chemicals by farmers, argue conservation groups. Government figures show that more than two thirds of rivers in England and Wales are failing European targets for water quality and that agricultural is the main source of pollution....
- Norbord to reduce carbon footprint buildersmerchantsjournal.net
Panel products manufacturer Norbord is planning to transfer freight movements from the road to canal. Norbord to reduce carbon footprint The Great Glen Shipping Company's new canal vessel, "Kanuta" The company, which makes Caberwood MDF, Sterling OSB and Caberdek flooring, consumes huge quantities of wood fibre at its plants in North Devon, Cowie and Inverness. While nearly all the company's raw materials are sourced locally, a significant proportion of the wood required for OSB production at Inverness is brought to the factory from the other side of Scotland via the Great Glen. "About 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes of roundwood logs come up the Great Glen every year" says wood fibre procurement manager Doug Lamont. At present, all of this wood is transported by lorry along the circuitous route of the A82 trunk road. ...
- British Waterways thanks boaters in Birmingham waterscape.com
As the main boating season draws to a close British Waterways is thanking boaters and waterside businesses for their cooperation in helping to conserve water levels on the Birmingham Canal Navigations. The extra help from the boating community was needed as a result of the reduction in water supply from Chasewater Reservoir....
- All aboard HMS Origami: What happened when we tested whether a paper boat really could hold a full sized (Mail) man dailymail.co.uk
Even Captain Bligh did not have to suffer this. Cast adrift in an open boat, yes. Cast adrift in an open boat made of paper, no. And all in the name of art. To be fair to the German conceptual artist Frank Bolter, who has been making a name for himself in London this past week by floating his outsize origami on the Thames, I only had myself to blame. [See also YouTube video of the boat being made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK66kzl-7Sw ]...
- Artist Floats a Paper Boat Down the Thames in London inhabitat.com
This past weekend in London artist Frank Bölter relied on a little help from his friends — and complete strangers — to make sure his latest artistic feat didn’t plunge into the murkey waters of the Thames. With a few hands from his crew and a few passersby Bölter floated down the famous river in a boat made of nothing but paper! Before his launch, he asked for the help of spectators to fold his white sheet into a proper floating vessel and then took a ride through the middle of London while reading a newspaper. ...
- Heroic emergency worker plucks drowning man to safety from canal birminghammail.net
Selfless Denis Loughlin didn’t think twice about diving into a Birmingham canal to save the life a drowning man. The modest 32-year-old ambulance technician insists he is no hero and says his life-saving actions were “just in a day’s work”. The dad of four from Northfield disregarded his own safety when he jumped into the mucky water to help a man who was lying face down in the canal off Bristol Road, near Selly Oak railway station. Receiving his Birmingham Mail Local Heroes 2010 award, Denis said: “I didn’t really think about what I was getting in to, I just acted on instinct."...
- Restoration on British canal network to expose heritage timesofmalta.com
A £50 million makeover of dozens of historic locks, bridges and aqueducts in Britain is to be opened to the public to give people a “behind-the-scenes” look at the country’s canal network, according to British Waterways....
- River Thames Armistice Day service london-se1.co.uk
A service of remembrance was held on board the MV Havengore on Wednesday morning. A wreath was placed on the water of the Thames between the Houses of Parliament and St Thomas' Hospital. Tower Bridge lifted at 10am as a symbolic gesture as Havengore, escorted by a harbourmaster vessel, a police boat, a fire boat and an RNLI lifeboat, passed into the Upper Pool of London. MV Havengore is best known for its role in Sir Winston Churchill's waterborne funeral procession in 1965. A service of remembrance was held on board the boat once it arrived alongside St Thomas' Hospital....
Thursday 11 November
Today's news from the web
- British Waterways: Open days show £50m restoration on canal network yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk
A £50 million makeover of dozens of historic locks, bridges and aqueducts is to be opened to the public to give people a "behind-the-scenes" look at Britain's canal network, British Waterways said today....
Wednesday 10 November
Today's news from the web
- The River Runs Through It, exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow heraldscotland.com
Rivers have a habit of gathering momentum. Mystery often rushes around the source of a river. The Clyde, the waterway at the heart of The River Runs Through It, a new selling exhibition which opens this week in Kelvingrove, may or may not originate at Little Clyde’s Burn in South Lanarkshire. ...
- Malmesbury Young Farmers haul narrowboat 26 miles gazetteandherald.co.uk
The group of up to 25 young people used ropes and poles and pulled the barge through 36 locks along the Kennet and Avon Canal for three days raising funds for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance and the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust. Malmesbury Young Farmers chairman Edd Akerman said pulling the boat up the steep Caen Hill flight of locks was the toughest challenge. ...
Tuesday 9 November
Today's news from the web
- Plans outlined for Boris Johnson’s Cable Car scheme over London’s River Thames docklands24.co.uk
Detailed plans have been unveiled for London’s first ever cable car system to cross high above the River Thames. London Mayor Boris Johnson wants to connect Royal Docks and The O2 through a five-minute journey in a gondola. The proposals have now been lodged with both Newham and Greenwich councils, with the scheme set to be completed in time for the 2012 Olympics if it is approved....
- Ex-Thornton's chief behind Mercia Marina thisisderbyshire.co.uk
After more than a quarter of a century working for the family business John Thornton, the grandson of the founder of Somercotes chocolate-maker Thorntons, was in no mood to spend his retirement pruning the roses. Instead, the 66-year-old decided on a rather larger undertaking – to turn a 70-acre site near the South Derbyshire village of Willington into one of the country's largest marinas for canal narrowboats and cruisers....
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