2016 IWA Festivals, & Liverpool cruise gets easier

The venues for the IWA’s 2016 four main boat festivals are here now, and this year boaters should find it easier to get to one!.

Pelsall Rally

The annual London-based Canalway Cavalcade – in its 33rd year – will again take place in Little Venice over the May Bank Holiday from 30 April to 3 May.

At the end of that month over the Spring Bank Holiday the IWA Trailboat Festival will be on the Chesterfield Canal on 28-29 May. It will in Staveley town Basin and combined with the Chesterfield Canal Trust’s annual festival.  A feature will be a trailboat cruise in convoy up the River Rother.

IWA’s National Campaign Festival will be at Liverpool’s Eldonian Village on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal on 11-12 June. Aims are to increase leisure activities on this relatively underused part of the waterway and to help celebrate the bicentenary of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Another intention is to campaign for facilities at this location for boaters on passage to and from the Liverpool Link.

Improved passage arrangements through the Liverpool Link waterway introduced by CRT should ensure more boaters can enjoy the city attractions of Liverpool in 2016. With only 45 visitor berths in Salthouse Dock it also means that during popular times, such as the Mersey River Festival in June, boaters also have the alternative of mooring on the main line of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. This mooring also gives access the city centre attractions about a mile away. The new procedures mean that up to six boats can travel each way every day except Tuesdays. This gives boaters more flexibility over arrival and departure days into Salthouse Dock, compared with the old system which had designated ‘in’ and ‘out’ days. One of the advantages of the new system is that boaters can now cruise straight to the end of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal at the Eldonian Village without needing to book a passage from Aintree.

The association’s main IWA Festival of Water, on the Bank Holiday weekend of 27-29 August will be on the Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) at Pelsall Common near Walsall (Image top). It has already been the location for popular local events and over 200 boats are expected to help boost the use of the Wyrley & Essington Canal and the BCN network as a whole.

Anyone wishing to participate in the festivals – including traders who may wish to exhibit – will find contact details for all the events on the IWA website.

Thanks to Harry Arnold and Waterway Images for this report and images.

All materials and images © Canal Junction Ltd. Dalton House, 35 Chester St, Wrexham LL13 8AH. No unauthorised reproduction.

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