A major victim of this year's drought has been the canals of the Midlands, with many lengths of them closed to boats.
Among the closures are the two flights of staircase locks at Foxton near Market Harborough. Now BBC News reports that they are to reopen - but only for a week.
The Canal and River Trust said the site, near Market Harborough, will be open for a week between 27 October and 2 November.
The locks will be open from 10:00 BST to 15:00, with the last boat allowed in at 14:00.
The locks between Foxton and Leicester will also open between those hours during the same week.
Explaining the brevity of Foxton's reopening, a spokesperson for the trust said:
"We're really pleased that recent rainfall has at least allowed us to reopen locks for a short period and enable boaters to get to where they need to be ahead of winter.
"While recent wet weather has been very welcome, it's not been enough to make up for the prolonged dry weather we've experienced for the majority of the year.
"Reservoir holdings are still well below what we would normally expect for this time of year, so we still need to be careful with our water and allow our reservoirs to refill ahead of next year's boating,"
And the BBC also reports that Saddington Reservoir, the nearest canal reservoir to the locks, was still only at 25 per cent capacity last month.
The drought has certainly brought home how vulnerable the inland waterways are to climate change. See the Canal and River Trust's Climate Adaptation Report for its own thinking on the subject.
In the mean time, you can see Foxton Locks above and Saddington Reservoir below.
Later. Due to the low water level, the section from Kilby Lock 30 to Kings Lock 38 will not be open for navigation after all.
When the Grand Union canal closure was announced three months ago -- there were chains on some locks briefly -- I waited to read about it in the Leicester Mercury. Still waiting...
ReplyDeleteIs climate change going to give us dry waterless summers and soaking wet winters BUT NOT ENOUGH WATER? As an insurance policy we need far more than the few reservoirs that are being built.
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