Gainsborough: New measures are being put in place to encourage more boaters to explore the River Trent

The Canal and River Trust, the charity that cares for 2,000 miles of the nation’s historic waterways, is to introduce a range of measures to provide support and advice for boaters wanting to explore the River Trent.

It follows a recent survey carried out by the Trust’s East Midlands Waterway Partnership, along with The Boating Association and Inland Waterways Association, which aimed to try and understand what can be done to increase the number of boats on the river.

The survey received over 400 responses, with around 65% coming from boaters with more than ten years’ experience. Over half the respondents indicated that they had never tried the River Trent before citing reasons such as a lack of visitor moorings and other facilities, as well as a perception about the increased difficulty of boating on the river rather than a canal.

The Canal and River Trust is now using the feedback from boaters to explore a number of measures to overcome these issues, including working with partners to find suitable locations and funding for additional visitor moorings, looking into better promotion of existing river charts, setting up a boating buddy system, which would see boaters travel together, creating instructional videos for boaters to view on YouTube and working with Google to upload boating data onto their mapping system.

Danny Brennan, chair of the Canal and River Trust’s East Midlands Waterway Partnership, said; “I’d like to thank boaters for giving us their views. We’ve listened carefully to what boaters have told us. Around two thirds of people felt that better information and charts would make them more likely to use the river so we’ll look into what’s already available and how it can be improved.

“We really want to do as much as we can to encourage boaters onto the Trent.”