And it believes young people are ideal for collecting the information that can underpin an extensive environmental database

And it believes young people are ideal for collecting the information that can underpin an extensive environmental database.
The project is symptomatic of a radical new approach to the 200-year- old canal network, which for many years languished as British transport’s forgotten arm, slowly falling into decay.The Labour Government has injected new money, and more importantly, new belief into the canal system, as something of enormous potential value to the whole community – for its history, archaeology, wildlife and recreational potential – rather than just to boating enthusiasts.British Waterways has responded enthusiastically, and is turning itself from a mere navigation authority into what has been termed “the National Trust for Canals”, managing and promoting all aspects of their worth, and constantly pointing out that half the country’s population lives within five miles of one.It is presiding over a giant restoration programme which is currently seeing disused canals restored at nearly 100 miles a year – the same rate at which they were built during the years of “canal mania” from 1790 to 1830, when they were cut as the motorways of the industrial revolution.Its wildlife survey is a recognition that the network may be long and thin, but it supports a wealth of biodiversity in a remarkable array of habitats – dragonflies and a huge variety of other insects, a profusion of aquatic plants, rich bird life and many fish species, as well as exotic introductions such as terrapins – all of which should be actively conserved.The imaginative idea of doing the survey with schoolchildren (lots of them available everywhere, and virtually cost-free) rather than just professional ecologists (only a few available, and salaried) is doubly worthwhile, British Waterways thinks.First, it actively engages local young people with their canals, and is designed to be widely used as a teaching tool. British Waterways, the body that runs the canals, wants them to be seen and cherished as a rich wildlife resource as much as a facility for transport and pleasure boating. “We are particularly interested in finding out more about the flats’ ability to carry enormous loads in very shallow inland waters,” said Martin Cook, who has led the salvage effort.. THE WILDLIFE of Britain’s 2,000 miles of canal network, from mallards and moorhens to lichens on old brick bridges, is to be comprehensively surveyed – by schoolchildren. Herbert was badly damaged at Eastham at the junction of the Manchester Ship Canal and the Mersey in 1902, while John sank in the Mersey in 1989.The three boats were immediately transported to the boat museum run by a British Waterways’ trust at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. A wooden cradle was built beneath it before cranes hoisted up its bow.
This type of canal boat had not seen the light of day for 50 years. Flats were built in the 1800s to transport corn, linen and pig iron.

They carried an astonishing 70 tonnes of freight along the narrow waterways.Onward’s length also made it adaptable to work the tidal Dee and Mersey rivers but, in the Fifties, it was abandoned, buried along with other flats and narrow-boats as a cost-effective way of filling the Tower Wharf Basin at Chester.A British Waterways engineer stumbled upon the boats while developing a scheme to regenerate Chester’s canalside, and archaeologists have subsequently excavated the timbers over the last year.Two Mersey river flats, Herbert and John, which are almost as rare, followed Onward out of the water, yesterday. IN ITS 19th-century heyday, it was the workhorse of Britain’s canal network, but a barge of a kind archaeologists had feared lost was handled with immeasurable delicacy in a pounds 20,000 operation to salvage it yesterday. Archaeologists at the York Trust, which advised those preserving Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose, were consulted before the timbers of the world’s only surviving “canal flat”, Onward, was lifted from a Shropshire Union Canal wharf in Chester. The surgeon involved in the operations, Paul Brittain, has since been declared “safe” following examination of his clinical procedures by the Royal College of Ophthalmogists.A Bupa spokesman said that compensation would be considered on an individual basis..

One had died of an unrelated condition.Mr Wells-Thorpe said he would be passing 11 recommendations to the Department of Health to prevent similar errors He said “the event was the result of a misunderstanding”. Ten had since been discharged, seven showed signs of improvement and two had had corneal grafts. Inadequate post-operative care meant the cause of the problem was only discovered in March.Of 20 patients recalled, one-third had inflammation and corneal damage, and another third had swelling and clouded vision. I am going to become South Wales Police’s worst nightmare,” Mr O’Brien said.. TWENTY ELDERLY National Health Service eye patients sent to a private hospital in a drive to cut waiting lists suffered ill-effects because medical staff failed to check they were injecting them with the right fluid, a report published yesterday says.