waterway network

This article describes a project being carried out by Google and the Canal and River Trust to map towpaths in England and Wales as part of an attempt to get more people on to rivers and canals.

The yrust currently produces PDF guides which list facilities across the waterway network. Whilst the information is kept as up-to-date as possible, this new project is intended to provide a more interactive means of encouraging people to discover their local waterway with access points, bridges and tunnels all marked.

The project comes at a time when British Waterways’ canals and rivers in England and Wales will be transferring into the care of the Trust (on 1 July).  While many people see this transfer as exciting times for waterways, in practice the trust will need to attract new investment and give local people a greater say in waterways management.

For me, this article raises important questions around the localism agenda: how do you get people/volunteers involved (beyond the usual suspects)? What steps can you take to ensure locality working is not top down?

And at a time of squeezed budgets, how can you prevent investment (and a lack of it perhaps) from becoming the only talking shop?