2010 is a landmark year in the life of the Kennet & Avon canal as we celebrate 200 years since completion of this important water route from Reading to Bristol.  This year’s Waterways Festival will be focussing on ensuring the future of the canal so it can remain as a valuable heritage and leisure asset for the people of southern England for another 200 years. To reflect this, the Festival will have “2010 – a canal odyssey” as its theme.

Boats will start arriving for the Festival on Friday 23rd July.  This year we hope to have historic working boat ‘Nuneaton’ visiting us as part of its annual coal run.

Dressed up for display on Sunday, the public will have a chance to see inside a range of narrowboats ancient and modern.

The Festival will take place between 10am to 5pm on Sunday 25th and we are delighted that Councillor Dr Ian Grose, Mayor of Newbury, will officially open the event at 11am. Chair of West Berks Council, Graham Pask, will also be attending during the day.  

As usual the Festival will feature a wide range of stalls providing an opportunity to shop, eat, learn or try your luck at winning.  And plenty of opportunities for the kids to play at the funfair and on the land train. Local jazz duo “Idle Words” will entertain visitors during the day. The Festival will conclude with the traditional duck race when more than a thousand plastic ducks race to win their sponsor a prize.

This year the Festival and Kennet Cruises will be bringing public boat trips back to Newbury aboard vintage trip boat ‘Lancing’ which is travelling from Burghfield for the weekend.  Boat trips will be scheduled for both Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th and will depart the Wharf, outside the Stone Building.

The Kennet & Avon Canal Trust campaigned and worked for 40 years to restore the canal which reopened 20 years ago this year.  Now it works to Protect, Enhance & Promote the canal.  At the Festival the Trust will be announcing its recently agreed partnership with British Waterways to jointly manage the waterway bringing together professionals and volunteers to work together to assure the future of the Kennet & Avon.  Chairmen from both the Trust and British Waterways will meet with newly appointed Waterways Minister – Newbury’s own MP Richard Benyon to sign the agreement.

The canal is a fantastic piece of engineering and the restoration was a quite phenomenal project.  I love the K&A and have travelled every inch of its towpaths.  However, I do wonder about whether the costs of keeping it open are justified. Even on a sunny summer weekend day there are few boats to be seen.  Does anyone know how much subsidy from the taxpayer it needs to keep it going?

In these times of up to 40% public expenditure cuts, when we all accept that even police officers are going to be made redundant in their thousands, benefits slashed, old school buildings left to leak and rot, the Red Arrows scrapped and so on, our delightful but under used canal has to be sacrificed, doesn't it?

I wonder if our local MP and junior government minister will be like a 'rat up a trouser leg' for this one as well when it comes to the crunch.