UK Canals and Waterways

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) for bringing this important debate.

I am excited to talk about our canals because I am the vice president of the Cotswold Canals Trust and I take every opportunity to talk about the fabulous men and women who have done so much for our communities. The organisation boasts the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, which I nominated it for and we accepted last year. It has also won engineering awards and so many more accolades.

The trust is winning stuff with so much good reason, because we have hundreds of volunteers, as many hon. Members have said, and they are really skilled. Being in my patch means we have nuclear scientists, engineers and people who have taken time out to come and help us with our vision for our canal network. They also let me dredge part of our canal. If hon. Members look at my Instagram video of that, they will see a massive smile on my face as I saw the dredgers go backwards and forwards. The volunteers are absolutely fantastic. They also work closely with councils; Stroud District Council is a big partner. The stakeholder working group is huge and to their credit. We also have real excellence in the fundraising department, winning £9 million of lottery funding, and I opened the Stonehouse bookshop, which is the second of the fundraising bookshops in our area.

I live near the Saul junction and I can see the River Severn from my house, so waterways are important to me. As some hon. Members have already said, during the devastatingly dark times of lockdown, when we were walking round in circles for the short time we were allowed out of the house, the canal waterway was vital to my mental health and to many other people’s as well.

The main reason why the communities and canal network teams in my constituency are superb is their brilliant and bold ambition for what we are trying to do. In 1975, a team of waterway enthusiasts recognised the importance of our canals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield has so beautifully brought to life today, we have to bear in mind the history of the networks. The Gloucester and Sharpness canal was planned in the late 18th century and it opened in 1827. By 1905 the traffic exceeded 1 million tonnes. In my own little village, we had an important Cadbury’s factory, and we were bringing in goods and using the canal networks to connect to the midlands. We all know how important that business was for our country and for chocolate.

As for that bold ambition, we would like to connect the River Severn to the Thames, with water-transfer opportunities woven in. We have a wet bit of the country and we can bring it to a drier bit of the country. We have made a real commitment to restoring the Cotswold canals to full navigation in the interests of conservation, biodiversity and local quality of life. We have had a few phases of that, with the Gloucester and Sharpness canal phase and the Cotswold Water Park to the River Thames. Phase 3 will link the central section, which includes the now-derelict Sapperton tunnel. Phase 1A was opened by His Majesty the King and we have come up against some serious engineering challenges. I would welcome some visits to the A38 roundabout, because we have put a canal through it, which is pretty impressive.

Will the Minister visit Stroud? I know she knows and loves my patch already. Will she give the Government a bit of a kick on funding and also ensure they understand the importance of that? I say “they” because it is not just DEFRA—it is the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department of Health and Social Care and so many other Government Departments. They need to understand that when we ask for support for our canal and waterway networks, it is about tourism, health, wellbeing and the local economy. I ask the Government to work with organisations such as the Cotswolds Canals Trust because they are stacked full of experts and they are constructive. They do not ask for something unless they genuinely need it, because their first port of call is usually to try to find things and do it themselves. I cannot thank my local teams enough. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.