Canal collapse repairs to take most of 2026

Repairing a canal collapse that left boats swallowed up in a deep trench as water poured out could take most of 2026, authorities have said

New aerial footage shows the extent of damage to the Llangollen Canal and its embankment in Whitchurch, Shropshire, caused by a breach on 22 December.

Two narrowboats were left at the bottom of a trench in the canal bed and a third hanging over the edge. Dozens of other boats were left grounded.

The Canal and River Trust said some of the boats had been rescued, but repairing the wider damage to the site would be a "huge project costing several million pounds".

Julie Sharman, chief operating officer of the Canal and River Trust, said engineers were still investigating the cause of the "catastrophic" failure.

"Sometimes [the cause is] not definitive," she said.

"Earth structures are quite complex, and there's a number of thoughts as to what might be the cause but I'd rather not speculate.

"When you get a water path through an embankment it unravels as it goes and then it gets quite catastrophic as we can see here and the damage is significant."

Two dams have been built to isolate the damaged section and many of the stranded boats have already been refloated.

The focus now is on recovering the two narrowboats in the bottom of the trench.

"We're working out the best way to do that," Ms Sharman explained, but it was expected a ramp would be built for them to be towed out, before they could be assessed.

It is believed one of the boats, named Sefton, was "quite badly flooded," she said, as it was the first boat that fell in and it was believed to have its doors open at the time.

However, the other - Ganymede - is hoped to be in "pretty good condition" with "no sign of water breaching the vessel".

A third boat that had been left teetering over the edge of the collapse, the Pacemaker, has been winched to safety and engineers are hoping to be able to refloat it in the coming week, to allow it to be assessed at a marina.

Its owner Paul Stowe and his family barely managed to escape after being woken up in the early hours of 22 December when the boat started to list.

"It's the most terrifying experience of my life. You don't realise how powerful the water is until it's taking you away," he said.

"The ground just opened us beneath us. We were actually hanging over the edge.

"There was no bank, just a hole that went down 40m."

In the wake of the incident, Mr Stowe said he had been amazed by the support of the community in Whitchurch and other boaters, with people offering "everything from holiday villas in Italy" to "toys for the cats".

More than £100,000 has been raised to help those affected, with organisers saying they had been "blown away" by people's generosity.

The Stowe family spent Christmas in a borrowed boat at the OverWater Marina, but are now looking for new lodgings while they wait on news about Pacemaker.

"Come next week we'll be homeless again and looking for somewhere to live," Mr Stowe said.

Once the last of the boats is recovered, the focus will switch to repairing the embankment and the canal itself.

Ms Sharman said the first stage would be to remove the waste material, which will not be able to be used in the rebuilding of the canal.

"We will have to cut back the shoulders of this damaged area in steps and bring in new material of the right quality to rebuild the embankment up in levels," she said.

"Compacting as we go to make sure it's structurally sound, probably relining this section across this embankment with an impermeable layer.

"And then hopefully we'll be reopening this canal later this year - but it will be towards the end of this year."