Inland Waterways: Access

(asked on 20th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make it his policy to make English and Welsh waterways more accessible after the transition period.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 25th November 2020

After the transition period, Government policy will continue to recognise that access to waterways brings positive public benefits including health and well-being from exercise and recreation in the open air, as well as connecting communities more widely with the natural environment. Our waterways are enthusiastically used by a range of people with differing interests, including pedestrians, cyclists, anglers, paddle craft, and motorboaters amongst others. We believe it is essential that all interests work together when considering how the accessibility of waterways might be improved. This might include waterside path improvement, which would be led by the navigation or local authority involved. We believe that access to unregulated waterways should be achieved through encouraging voluntary access agreements, between riparian landowners and others with an interest in using the waterway, which take into account local circumstances.

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