UKH

Found this interesting article from the Guardian today.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/03/slow-ways-app-map-14000...

At one point when walking out of Congleton on the way to Macclesfield the only walkers they meet are with dogs. Another interesting fact was that you could walk from London to Kendal entirely besides canals. Time to download the app, funded by the National Lottery. If there had been no lockdown this might not have happened. With the present Government proposing to bring forward the date for recording all RoW, perhaps we should all get our skates (boots) on.

Is that not.... this https://footpathmap.co.uk/map/ ???

(And canals pretty reliably have a towpath, so it's not that surprising that you can walk from/to most places on the canal network, including the non-navigable bits)

I thought it was more the unrecorded or disused prows that needed people to get on and rediscover...?

The canals are slightly doomed, 'they' want to slash something like £300m of the canals budget soon.

Well almost. Heading south, the Lancaster Canal used to go into Preston Docks, but the last mile or so of it has been filled in. From the docks traffic would then go down the River Ribble for a few miles before entering the River Douglas which was followed until a spur of the Leeds Liverpool canal could be entered at Tarleton Lock.

The link was re-establish about 25 years ago with a new stretch of canal round Preston, but the river parts are still used. You have to be a bit creative to follow the route on foot rather than the simple 'follow the canal' which will suffice for the rest of the way.

Sad to read that, but regardless of the colour of anyone's tie I'd feel pretty selfish trying to argue that grants for canal maintenance are the best thing that money could go to. The footpaths and biodiversity should live on with or without the navigability. But hopefully the original plan of the boatery soon making enough income for the network to stay afloat (intended) will come to pass. 

Really? Round our way we've had 2 vast new marinas built in the last 10 years, the demand for filling them with canal boats is unstoppable. 

Plenty of money sloshing around somewhere so presumably those owners will ensure canals stay viable if they want to move? 

There's also a lot of scruffy boats that move around a lot to avoid charges, park up and leave ash and s**t in the hedges so I guess perhaps they're less enthusiastic about funding canal infrastructure.

The real problem is most councils are so cash strapped that already rediscovered paths might not be processed in time. The government did extend the deadline and then U turned under Coffey. It's a good idea for people to lobby their MP (especially tory MPs).

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2023/10/political_u-turns_paint_bleak_pictu...

The 2031 deadline is 'only' for routes that could potentially be added to the Definitive Map based on historical documentary evidence rather than usage (20 years etc).  Still amounts to a a lot of potentially useful  routes. Slow Ways is quite interesting, and serves to draw attention to PRoW, but is of limited wider practicality focussing as it does on linking towns/area whereas most demand & need  is for shorter routes near where people live