Peak Forest and Macclesfield Canals

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Westminster Hall

11:00

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Before I call Lisa Smart to move the motion, I inform hon. Members that the parliamentary digital communications team will be conducting secondary filming during the debate. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, the Member in charge of the debate will not have an opportunity to wind up.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered funding for Peak Forest and Macclesfield canals.

I rise to speak about a subject close to my heart: our beautiful canals, including the magnificent 16-lock flight in Marple. Our canals are not just waterways. They are part of our national story and are deeply woven into the fabric of our community. They are remarkable pieces of living heritage that we must protect, and protecting them is one of my three asks of the Minister today.

I want us to protect our canals as precious green corridors and as a direct link with our nation’s and my community’s proud industrial heritage. I want our canals to be funded as a critical part of our infrastructure. I want us to value our canals. We should look at them as assets to be cherished, not simply as liabilities to be managed.

The Peak Forest canal, one of Britain’s most scenic waterways, runs alongside the River Goyt for much of its length. The Macclesfield canal is a historic link between Manchester and the midlands. They are both jewels of our waterways. They are where they are because of the Stockport mills—notably Mellor mill, which was the largest cotton-spinning mill in the world in its time—and the Derbyshire quarries. We can still see that heritage along the canals, with Unity mill in Woodley, Romiley board mill and Goyt mill in Marple.

As the canals cross through Marple, they make up 5 km of designated conservation areas. Each lock on the Marple flight is grade II listed, meaning that it is protected as an area of special interest. The Marple aqueduct, itself a historic landmark, is the highest in England and is a grade I listed structure. Protecting these landmarks costs money. With 16 locks, and with lock gates costing approximately £150,000 each because they have to be hand-crafted, the bills quickly add up.

Back in 2012, all British Waterways’ assets and responsibilities in England and Wales were transferred to a newly founded charity, the Canal and River Trust. Unfortunately, these heritage and community treasures now face an uncertain future. Alongside the regular care and maintenance of the canals and the 71 large reservoirs that feed them, the CRT has had to tackle significant work such as the extensive restoration project for Toddbrook reservoir, which supplies both the Peak Forest and Macclesfield canals. After a partial failure in 2019, the repairs came at a hefty cost of £15 million. Such massive efforts highlight just how vulnerable this vital infrastructure is.

Funding changes made by the previous Conservative Government, which will mean cuts of 5% a year for 10 years, will drain nearly £300 million from the trust. Those reductions will undoubtedly undermine the trust’s ability to sustain the canal network. I fear that that will make the closure of those treasured public spaces sadly inevitable, unless something changes.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing the debate. She is presenting a lovely visual account of her constituency. Based on what she says and on what I observe, the potential for tourism, for the betterment of the environment and for people living across the community has not yet been realised. Does she agree that there is so much to gain that perhaps the Government should search their pockets and find the extra money?

[Lisa Smart]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s point about potential not yet realised. I will highlight later in my speech some of the uses of our canals, but there is an awful lot more that we could be doing. I encourage the Government to look at the canals in the round and consider what they could do for the environment, for tourism, for health and for our communities, as well as how they make it easier for people to walk to work the most direct way. I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman.

I am a proud and long-standing trustee of the Stockport Canal Boat Trust for Disabled People; I refer all colleagues to my registered interests. I cannot overstate the joy, the serenity and the community value that can be found in spending time cruising at a maximum speed of 4 mph. The trust operates the New Horizons, a fully accessible 72-foot narrowboat run by volunteers that offers passengers of all abilities time to enjoy our canals. While cruising, we see families walking their dogs and enjoying nature. We see joggers, we see cyclists and, as I said to the hon. Gentleman, we see people simply using the towpath as the most direct route to walk to work.

Beyond their cultural and historical significance, the waterways are crucial for nature, for wellbeing and for combating climate change. They provide a vital habitat for wildlife and serve as a natural green corridor connecting diverse ecosystems that are bursting with biodiversity. Canals also play a really important role in water management, reducing flood risk and increasing climate resilience. Problems with reservoirs are problems for all of us.

For health and wellbeing, canals offer an unparalleled sanctuary. Our waterways are freely accessible and provide opportunities for walking, cycling and relaxation in green spaces. At a time when public health concerns are high and when such spaces in urban and suburban areas are scarce, they deliver a cost-saving gift to the NHS. Research suggests that that gift amounts to more than £1 billion a year.

Our canal towpaths are often flat by design and can offer accessible physical and mental health benefits to many, as my constituents in Hazel Grove know well. After securing this debate, I asked for stories about how the canal had touched their lives. I was moved by the overwhelming response: I received more than 100 messages in only a couple of days. Older community members shared how they find solace and companionship in walking along the towpaths. Parents and grandparents spoke of the joy of exploring the canals with their children and grandchildren. One resident shared how walks along the canal were crucial to recovery after a heart attack and a major cancer operation: the serenity and beauty of the canal were key to their healing.

For many, the canals are an escape from traffic pollution and noise. They are a sanctuary of peace amid a busy world. Imagine looking at them as part of the solution—as a way to encourage people out of their cars, rather than as problems to be managed and towpaths to be fixed.

I want to make the case for the 16-lock flight in Marple to be designated as a world heritage site. It is an extraordinary testament to our industrial and engineering heritage that represents a pivotal era in Britain’s industrial past. Such recognition would not only attract global interest and boost local tourism, but ensure that the locks are protected and celebrated for generations to come. I am committed to working closely with our local community, with heritage experts and with international bodies to make that vision a reality and ensure that the locks get the recognition they truly deserve.

I ask the Minister to protect our canals, to fund our canals and to value our canals. They are assets. With a bit of creative, holistic thinking, they could do so much more: they could save money for the NHS and for our transport budget, instead of simply being liabilities to be managed.

11:08

[Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)]

Thank you for your service in the Chair today, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) for securing this important debate on a valued public amenity.

The Macclesfield and Peak Forest canals both mean a lot to me, not just because they are in my constituency, but because I am familiar with them from childhood—from walking my first dog down by the Peak Forest canal in Disley, plugged into my Walkman and listening to the Spice Girls, to using it now for rest and relaxation after a trying week here in Westminster. It matters to many of my constituents as well. A third of Macclesfield sits within the Peak District national park, and the canals that run through our countryside add to the beauty of the area that I represent.

The Macclesfield canal is the first in the world to receive the coveted Green Flag award under the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s scheme to recognise and reward well-managed parks and green spaces. The award is judged on eight strict criteria, including environmental standards, cleanliness, sustainability and community involvement. It is no wonder that the Macclesfield canal has hit that high standard, especially considering the tireless hours that volunteers put into maintaining it. I pay tribute to the volunteers involved in maintaining our wonderful canals.

The beauty of the canal is further enhanced by the impressive and historical buildings and places of interest located alongside it. The hon. Member mentioned some of them, but I draw attention to those in my neck of the woods, including the Clarence and Adelphi mills in Bollington and the famous Hovis mill in Macclesfield, and my mum would be disappointed if I did not mention her home, which sits alongside the Peak Forest canal. Our canals are not only beautiful green spaces; their significance as a network that provides jobs, homes, transportation and a thriving habitat for wildlife cannot be overestimated.

What is especially heartbreaking is the threat that our canals face because of the ongoing financial strain on the Canal and River Trust, which is a legacy of the last Conservative Government. Cuts to CRT funding by 2027 will amount to more than £300 million. That is against a backdrop of mixed performance and some boater dissatisfaction with the CRT. Boaters in my constituency have raised real concerns with me. They deserve to be treated fairly and to receive the services they need.

The increase in the cost of boat licences and surcharges for those without a fixed home mooring risks a way of life that thousands have chosen. Continuous cruisers often have the lowest incomes, but are being asked to pay more. I am sympathetic, as I know other hon. Members are, because the costs that the CRT is passing on are a result of austerity. Sadly, as we have been discovering since the election in July, there are pressures across many aspects of public life that are a consequence of the inheritance from the last Government.

I am pleased to have been appointed last month to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which had its first meeting yesterday. I know that canals are high on the Committee’s agenda and that we will be speaking to the CRT in the coming weeks and months. I am grateful to be in a position to advocate for canals and for rural communities, both in general and for my Macclesfield constituents in particular, to ensure that rightful environmental concerns are heard and that we protect our cherished countryside and our amazing canals. I commend the hon. Member for Hazel Grove again for securing the debate.

11:12

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) both on her election and on securing this important debate. Similarly, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) on his election and on his excellent participation today.

We have heard a lot this morning—both hon. Members articulated it so eloquently—about the many benefits that the two beloved canals bring to so many people in Hazel Grove and Macclesfield. I was particularly interested to hear about the work done by CRT with the New Horizons canal boat, widening access to the canal, importantly, for children who are landlocked in the centre of the country and might not have had much access to the water. That is bringing water closer to the people.

As I was listening to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, I was thinking about how our canals helped build our country and how our mills helped clothe not just our country, but the world. They are a vital part of our industrial heritage. I had a wry smile when she spoke about lock gates and the flight locks, because the last remaining lock gate maker is in Stanley in Wakefield, my former constituency. They are a very precise piece of manufacturing and an incredibly difficult thing to engineer. When the hon. Lady was bidding for world heritage status for the lock flight, which I am sure is an incredible piece of engineering and which I hope to visit one day, I was thinking about the canal at Marsden by Huddersfield near my old constituency. That canal has what was the longest, deepest and highest canal tunnel in the world, a real feat of pre-Victorian engineering, starting on one side of the hill and going through to the other with fingers crossed that everyone would meet in the middle, which thankfully they did.

Our canals and inland waterways are a real asset to our country. They are important for heritage and provide many public benefits. People live on them, love being by them and use them for leisure, recreation and, as the hon. Lady said, to cycle to work. They are an important part of our natural environment, providing green corridors along which nature can flourish. I know that she has kingfishers on her canal, a rare and vanishing species in our country. Canals and inland waterways also contribute to the growth of local economies through domestic tourism, about which we have heard a great deal this morning.

In my constituency is the Oxford canal, which runs through the north of Coventry. It fed and took the silks away from the old Cash’s factory, which then became the factory for Courtaulds, which invented rayon— the rest is history, as they say. As well as being really popular for walkers, joggers and cyclists, it is a nationally important site for river voles—Ratty, for those of us who loved reading “The Wind in the Willows” to our children. I feel proud that we have a nationally important site for river voles in my bit of Coventry. It is very incongruous: if you saw the site, Mr Dowd, you would not think it was a little haven for nature. Canals provide really important biodiversity corridors.

We have two navigation authorities, the Canal and River Trust and the Environment Agency. The CRT reports that there were nearly 860 million visits to its canals last year, many of which were repeat visits, with around 10 million individual users each fortnight. That gives a real sense of the scale of the popularity of our canals. Our navigation authorities have a vital role to play in the future. They must help to ensure that this part of our nation’s key infrastructure is resilient to climate change, and they will help to meet net zero targets through sustainable transport and energy generation and contribute to water security through flood mitigation measures and water transfers.

The trust is a charity independent of Government, and Ministers do not have a role in its management or operational decisions. Because it is a private sector organisation, it is free to set its fees and charges accordingly. However, we expect it to engage constructively with the boating community and take account of issues of concern it raises, such as those that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield mentioned.

On the funding of the Peak Forest and Macclesfield canals, about which we have heard much today, it is the Canal and River Trust that manages the canals, as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove observed. It was set up in 2012 as a charity independent of Government to replace the publicly owned British Waterways. It owns and manages a network of 2,000 miles of canals and rivers in England and Wales, including the two that are the subject of our debate. The trust is free of public sector financing constraints, so it can source alternative revenue streams, including charitable donations and legacies, charity tax relief and third-party project funding, and it can borrow on the financial markets.

The Canal and River Trust is also endowed by the Government with a significant property and investment portfolio from British Waterways, which is now worth around £1 billion as a result of the trust’s sound management, on which I congratulate it. To provide support and certainty for the trust, a 15-year grant totalling around £740 million was provided when the trust was set up. The grant was inflation-adjusted in the first 10 years and then fixed in the final five years. It is now set at £52.6 million a year until the grant ends in 2027, representing about a quarter of the trust’s annual income. Returns from the investment portfolio provide another quarter of the annual income, which means that the trust now successfully raises half its annual income from other sources.

An important part of the transfer from British Waterways was an agreed objective that the trust would move progressively towards greater financial self-sufficiency and reduced reliance on public funding. With a reported increase of £12 million in total income last year over the previous year, the trust is already making good progress towards that objective.

A review of the current grant funding concluded that the trust was performing well and delivering value for money, and, as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirmed directly to the trust this summer, a further substantial grant funding package of £401 million will be provided by the Government over 10 years from 2027. Given the tough fiscal climate in which all Government spending is being closely scrutinised, and the financial black hole in which we were left by the previous Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield said, the new funding is a clear sign of the importance that this Government place on our inland waterways.

With all the benefits of canals that I outlined, the Government are supportive of canal restoration generally to bring those benefits to even more people. Bringing canals back into active use contributes to the regeneration of areas that have been in decline. We have seen that in urban settings and in more rural areas, where there has been growth in local economies through increased tourism. However, although we are sympathetic towards the many restoration projects under way around the country, no general Government funding is available for canals. I pay tribute to the local volunteers who come out on a Sunday morning, do the litter picks and help with the restoration, because their commitment and general surveillance of canals is an important part of making them a safe space for everyone. The navigation authorities, local authorities and canal societies, such as the one mentioned by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, can work well together to preserve the canals for which they are responsible, including through fundraising and on restoration and maintenance work. Successive Governments have encouraged greater local community involvement in their waterways in that way.

I hope I have reassured hon. Members that the Government very much value our inland waterways and the many, varied benefits that this blue and green infrastructure brings to so many people up and down the country. We have demonstrated our commitment to ensuring that this fantastic national asset is able to thrive by providing both the trust and the Environment Agency with substantial funding over the years and into the future with a further significant new 10-year grant funding settlement for the trust.

Question put and agreed to.

11:23

Sitting suspended.