Policy guidance highlights potential of inland waterways for supporting low carbon placemaking and transport plans

The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) has published its latest Policy Advice Note on Inland Waterways - Unlocking the Potential and Securing the Future of Inland Waterways through the Planning System. The central purpose of the Note is to highlight areas of opportunity for the strengthening of existing planning policy at all spatial levels - national, regional and local - in order to provide robust planning policy frameworks that:

• support the inland waterways as a cross-cutting policy theme;
• support the inland waterways’ ability to contribute fully in the delivery of Government agendas; and
• secure the long-term sustainability of the inland waterway network, their corridors and adjoining communities.

TCPA Senior Policy Officer Fiona Mannion said: 'The inland waterways of England and Wales link urban and rural communities, as well as linking historic buildings and structures with the wider landscape and forming key strategic wildlife corridors, and planning policy has a vital role in securing their future.'

TCPA Chief Executive Gideon Amos OBE added: 'Waterways offer attractive sites for both leisure and development but also provide opportunities for low carbon transport and other uses and a natural tool to help us adapt our environment to hotter summers and increased flood risks – it is time to ensure planning policy helps to realise all these opportunities.'

The Policy Advice Note has been produced by the TCPA with the support of British Waterways, the largest navigation authority in the country.

Robin Evans, chief executive of British Waterways said: 'The regeneration of derelict brownfield watersides has transformed the prospects of towns, villages and cities across Britain in the last decade and created new waterside neighbourhoods in once no-go areas.

'The long term sustainability of these areas, and the waterways on which they rely, depends to a very large degree on collaboration between planners, navigation authorities and local people, and we very much welcome TCPA’s contribution. Planning advice can sometimes seem a little dry, but in this case I believe it provides planners with the tools to transform local people’s lives for the better.'