Canals and Navigations

Time pressures from other things prevent me from going into this except very briefly at the moment, Joe, but your query does in fact lead to a few issues which are long overdue for an airing, . . . some to an extent are quite long standing, but there are others more recent including the effects on Navigation and Harbour Authority boundaries which could arise out of the development of new ABP terminal facilities at Dog and Duck.

In broad, practical terms the difference between a 'canal' and a 'navigation' is that a canal is entirely artificial and man-made, whereas navigations are created via the process of making a natural river navigable through the construction of canal sections and/or lockcuts and locks to bypass the weirs that are put in place to increase the river depth for navigation.

In legislative terms, however, the distinction that C&RT make, and work to, between canals and navigations has it's origins in the 1971 British Waterways Act, which defines and lists a number of 'navigations' as 'river waterways' in Schedule 1 to the Act. A statutory PRN existed on the canals from their beginning, written into the enabling Acts as a condition of empowering the new canal companies to build their waterways, as did the pre-existing PRN on river navigations, being extended to encompass the improvements needed to make them navigable, or deepen already navigable rivers, as a condition of the legislation which authorized those improvements. A PRN applicable to natural rivers, will generally be more ancient and originate from sources such as decrees of reigning monarchs or common law.

The 1968 Transport Act extinguished the statutory PRN on all the artificial/man-made canals (simultaneously with the obligation to maintain in a navigable condition via annulment of S.17 of the 1873 Regulation of Railways Act) and on, as since then generally accepted, the BWB controlled canal and river navigations that were not subsequently listed in Schedule 1 of the 1971 BW Act, such as the Aire & Calder from Leeds to Bank Dole Lock, Sheffield & South Yorkshire (river Don sections) and the Calder & Hebble. Whether or not these navigations should have been included in the 1971 Act's list of 'river waterways' is another question, but whatever the answer to that question is, the chances of rectifying any error that was made and getting them included in the Schedule now must be pretty slim.

As kris says there is a left over concession from BW days allowing boats "navigating between the River Trent and River Ouse via the Stainforth & Keadby Canal, Aire & Calder Navigation and the Selby Canal" with a Pleasure Boat Certificate (C&RT's mythical 'Rivers only Licence), ie. registered for use on only the river waterways specified/listed under the 1971 Act, to do so FoC within a period of up to 72 hours. As far as I'm aware this is, and never has been, anything more than a concession and could therefore be withdrawn at any time should C&RT decide so to do. Whilst the concession remains in place and in the current form of words, however, it could be argued that any boat, especially boats based in adjoining non-C&RT waters, spending up to 72 hours, for any purpose, on any part of any or all of the three nominated waterways is simply making fair use of it.