George Seward is getting up at 05:00 BST and cruising until dark to get his narrowboat through the Atherstone flight of locks before the Grand Union Canal closure begins on Tuesday morning. He said the last entry is on Monday afternoon, and the deadline will decide whether he gets his boat home or is left waiting for weeks.
George Seward and Coventry Canal
Seward, the Midlands regional chair of the Association of Waterways Cruising Clubs, said several hundred boaters are weighing the same choice. He described the route as “30-something miles long” and said the water level is already about eight inches down.
“They’re unlikely to be open again for many weeks and I want to make sure I get through that flight so I can get my boat safely home,” he said. The Canal and River Trust is trying to conserve dwindling supplies as water levels fall across the network.
West Midlands boaters face delays
The pressure is spreading beyond one flight of locks. Seward said some channels linking large parts of the Midlands and the North of England have lost several inches of water, leaving narrowboats stuck and some boaters worried about being stranded miles from home for weeks on end.
He said, “The Canal and River Trust are doing their best to stem those losses but the effect it has is that people will not be able to travel on an arterial route.” He added that the route matters because boaters use it to move across a wide stretch of the network, not just for short local trips.
The drought adds another layer of pressure. A drought was declared across seven areas of England this week after four heatwaves and one of the driest spells this century, while Seward said not all closures are driven by weather and that repair work is making the situation harder for boaters trying to plan ahead.
George Seward on canal closures
Seward said the canal route matters to him personally because the deadline decides whether he gets to Hinckley in Leicestershire or is left marooned for an unspecified period. He also said the situation is part of a wider pattern he has seen on the water, including a 15-boat campaign cruise heading for Preston and Lancaster this year that was “thwarted completely by lock closures, failed locks, droughts and failed assets”.
He said the network is in worse shape than it was in the 1970s and added: “The canal infrastructure is in a far worse state than it was in the 70s and that’s the problem.” For boaters now, the immediate task is simple: move before Monday afternoon entry closes, or face a wait that could stretch for many weeks.
