Navigation – Future Plans.

Alongside routine maintenance and operations of our navigation, we all have a shared ambition to see improvements made to the fantastic Middle Level navigation. Achieving this will require a combination of:

• Continued financial support from the Middle Level Commissioners
• Prompt receipt of registration fee income
• Collaboration with the Environment Agency, Cam Conservators and the Canal & River Trust
• Partnership working, match funding and community inputs

Boater Facilities

We have made a commitment within the passing of the Middle Level Act (2018) to ring-fence 25% of registration income and invest this in provision of facilities for boaters on the link route to meet Inland Waterways Association standards.

The IWA’s minimum standards are:

Water points, rubbish disposal points including recycling points, portable chemical toilet disposal points and electricity (shore power mains connection charging sites) at every 5 hours of cruising across most of the inland waterways system, including between waterways managed by neighbouring navigation authorities.

For the Middle Level navigation, this effectively means facilities at Stanground Lock, in March, and at Salter’s Lode Lock. Once we have delivered against the commitment on the link route, then we can consider facilities and our mooring offer more generally across our whole navigation.

General principles for facilities:

• We will generally only install, own and maintain facilities on land owned by MLC
• We need to provide basic facilities well and be conscious of operational and maintenance costs of the facilities and any associated liabilities
• Operational and maintenance costs will need to be billed to our navigation account
• Once we have discharged our link route commitments and have considered other areas of MLC owned land, we will consider providing grants to others from boat registration income for new facilities depending upon the overall financial picture of our navigation service and our business plan once its developed

So far, we have delivered water point installation at our office/mooring (completed in March 2024) and at Salters Lode Lock (completed Winter 2025). We have also provided funding to Fenland District Council for a water point at their mooring in Whittlesey.

Plans for development at Stanground Lock are on-hold and awaiting land ownership issue resolution and clarity regarding Anglian Water’s plans for the Fens Reservoir.

Moorings

New and/or improved public moorings are not part of the facilities commitment.

To report issues with Fenland District Council’s public moorings in Whittlesey and March, please us their online portal.

Asset & channel improvements

Following the installation of new downstream gates at Marmont Priory Lock in 2023/24, we are using that experience to develop our capital programme for gate replacement across our suite of locks. These are costly investments so we therefore need to build and plan budgets accordingly, phasing delivery as an when budgets and resources allow.

What improvements would you like to see?

We welcome feedback and ideas from our registration holders and this helps the discussion and decisions of the Navigation Advisory Committee. Please contact us via admin@middlelevel.gov.uk

As we have now been licensing for a few years, we have an information base to better forecast future income.

Ideally the next step would be to develop a 5-year Business Plan for the Middle Level Navigation with user input and consultation. As a small organisation we have resource constraints that limit our ability to drive this forward and would welcome boating community support.