Canal & River Trust

The concept of a National Waterways Conservancy was first championed and articulated in the 1960s by Robert Aickman, the co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association, as a way to secure the future of Britain's threatened inland waterways network.

The idea was revived by the management of British Waterways in 2008 in response to increasing cuts in grant-in-aid funding, a drop in commercial income after the 2008 financial crisis and growing calls by waterway users for a greater say in the running of the waterways.

On 18 May 2009, launching 'Twenty Twenty – a vision for the future of our canals and rivers' on the terrace of the House of Commons, British Waterways proposed a radical overhaul of waterway management and a transfer from public corporation to not-for-profit organisation. The event was supported by speakers from each of the three main parties: Charlotte Atkins MP, Peter Ainsworth MP and Lembit Opik MP. British Waterways' chairman, Tony Hales, said: "The private sector built the canals, the public sector rescued them and I believe the third sector can be their future".

In November 2009, British Waterways published another paper 'Setting a New Course: Britain's Inland Waterways in the Third Sector'. This promoted the original suggestion by British Waterways that it should become a private company, inheriting all of the property and other waterway assets held in public ownership.

In March 2010, the Labour government announced its decision to mutualise British Waterways, a commitment which was repeated in Labour's 2010 manifesto: "To give more people a stake in a highly valued national asset, British Waterways will be turned into a mutually owned co-operative".

Following the 2010 general election, the incoming coalition government reaffirmed its support for status change on the waterways, as an example of the Conservative Party's commitment to the so-called Big Society. Waterways Minister Richard Benyon stated on 21 June 2010 the government's "intention to move British Waterways to the civil society, subject to the outcome of the spending review."

Between March and June 2011, Defra ran a public consultation 'A New Era for the Waterways' on the overall structure of the proposed new body, the potential inclusion of the river navigations under the management of the Environment Agency (another public body), and the abolition of the Inland Waterways Advisory Council.

In October 2011, British Waterways announced a name and logo for a charitable trust which would inherit its English and Welsh operations: the Canal & River Trust, branded in Wales as Glandŵr Cymru (meaning Waterside Wales) — the Canal & River Trust in Wales. The Trust received charitable status in April and received parliamentary approval in June.

Controversies

In December 2016, Private Eye magazine reported that the Canal & River Trust had seized a historic retired lightship which had been moored for ten years at the docks near the maritime museum in Liverpool, following a dispute over unpaid berthing fees. The ship, named Planet, had served as the country's last crewed lightship until 1989, when it went to a museum and later to Liverpool's docks, where it was restored and used as a cafe and volunteer-operated maritime radio museum. The ship's owner reportedly owed overdue berthing fees, which were subsequently paid but not before the trust had towed and impounded the boat in Sharpness, Gloucestershire, thereby incurring further hefty fees. The Merseyside Civic Society launched a petition to bring the vessel back to Liverpool but the trust later sold it for £12,500, less than its estimated scrap valuation of £70,000. The trust faced possible legal action over the seizure and sale of the ship.

In November 2019, the Trust was criticised for not acting on calls to open a sluice gate in Worksop during extensive flooding in the area. The gate was eventually opened by the fire service, several hours after the first request to the Trust. The gate is within a building (not owned by the Trust) which the Trust considered to be unsafe.