Rochdale Canal.

Following the recent rainfall we are pleased that immediate effect the restrictions on the Rochdale summit have now been removed.

We would like to thank all our customers for their co-operation and support.

Further to our recent update we wanted to confirm that controls will be introduced on the Rochdale Canal from Friday 4th August.

In overview the canal will be closed at the Summit on Mondays and Fridays until further notice.  We are also introducing overnight closures on the other days of the week.

The canal will be locked at Locks 34 and 44.  The first locks each evening will be put on at 4pm and our teams will work with boaters in summit sections after that time to ensure their passage out.  Moorings are available immediately below these locks for people arriving after 4 or during one of the closed days.

The canal will be reopened at 9am on open days.

These restrictions are necessary so that we can ensure that we will be able to maintain navigation for the rest of the year.  We are currently negotiating with United Utilities about the provision of more water to us but do not have an outcome from that yet.  We will continue to monitor the water resource position and update as necessary.

If you want to know more about this issue or the canal generally please contact our office at Red Bull.

We are providing this notice to keep customers informed about the position relating to water supply for the Rochdale Canal.

The dry year so far means that it has been a very demanding period for water since April.  We want to make sure that we will have enough water to keep the canal fed and navigable up to the end of October.  Unlike many of our canals the Rochdale Canal is not fed by a reservoir owned by Canal & River Trust or from a river, but from a regulated supply of water that comes from a utility company reservoir.  That means that there is a strictly controlled amount of water that can be fed into the canal over the summer period.  We have investigated the possibility of buying supplies over and above our budget of water but, while this is something that we have been able to do in previous years, this year that isn’t a possibility owing to maintenance work that is taking place in the Utility company reservoirs that the water comes from.

In order to make savings to the amount of water that we need to feed into the canal we are proposing to close the summit to navigation on Monday’s and Fridays until the water supply situation becomes more clear, and expect to bring this control in with the first day of closure being Monday 4th August.  We believe that this will be sufficient to allow us to maintain a good supply of water in the rest of the week but will need to monitor this over the following weeks and, if necessary, bring in further restrictions if we have to.  In previous years we have had to introduce overnight closures in the area around Hebden Bridge as well.  It is not our intention to do this now, but will keep this under review too.

The canal will be locked off Locks 34 in Warland and 44 in Summit, on the evening of the day before the closure day  and unlocked again on the morning of the next day of navigation.  We’ll provide more details of timings for this closer to the time.  There is mooring immediately below these locks for people who are delayed by the closure.

The decision to close the canal to navigation is not taken lightly, we really want to make sure that we can provide a reliable service for our users and this includes water supply, for the whole of the year.  These measures are a consequence of the very dry weather we have been enjoying in the year so far.  If the position changes in this regard we will remove the restrictions as soon as we can. 

We’ll provide a more detailed update on timings for closures in the lead up to the 4th August.  In the meantime, if you want to know more about this issue or generally about the canal please contact our office at Red Bull.