The Beeb claim the next door field took million gallons of water. I'm not sure how much that really is but apparently its equivalent to 100 road tankers.
it's unusual to read that a similar thing happened at Bridgewater Canal/Dunham Massey almost exactly a year ago, although that time I think it was just a breach caused by a massive amount of rainfall rather than a sinkhole.
Blimey, more to this than meets the eye - was recent incident even a "sinkhole" - maybe more of a landslip? https://www.canaljunction.com/news/middlewich-breach-caused-by-paddles-left-open/2954 it's at times like these that you inadvertently get to test the integrity of your mooring rope.. - can be catastrophic and/or life-threatening if a failure should occur while boats are beached.
At least with narrow boats they will sit well on their flat bottoms, a cruiser would be on its side. Hire boaters are responsible for the vast majority of damage to the locks on our river, two locks were out of action for several months this year for repairs due to hire boats, trapping boats caught between the locks ( I was one of them). The problem is that the navigation authorities just increase the licence fees to cover the cost of repairs, our river license has gone up nearly £100 for next year. £570 for 42 miles of water….its a rip off.
small point, but I've seen with my own eyes what can happen to any boat when it stresses a rope, they don't necessarily just sit down on the keel regardless of whether it's flat or not, and narrow boats are a hell of a lot heavier than equivalent fibreglass cruisers. agree with you on the hire boat bit though, sadly
Yes sorry I didn’t mean when they are left tied up, more when they are allowed to go down in a controlled manner. I’ve cut loose dozens of hung up boats over the years and it’s dicey to say the least.
Unlikely to ever get built with rising costs etc but this is nuts. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93nw22343ro It would cause chaos if you built a new housing estate there yet alone an 8 million visitor a year tourist attraction.
This is why there are failed parcel deliveries BBC News - Delivery driver arrested after suspected Southampton parcel theft - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg9vnqz0r4o?app-referrer=deep-link
Another https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/22/people-rescued-boats-sinkhole-shropshire-canal
I would have thought more, I'm rusty on how much liquid can be carried in a road tanker but 33,000 LTRs rings a bell
It was sad watching the narrow boat falling off the edge last night on the news. Surely something could have been done to help those people secure their boat sitting on a muddy canal bottom...
agree, not sure at my age now, but you think it wouldn't take an awful lot to get some sturdy ropes and then tether to something solid would it? it could be it was those people's homes and now they're gone.
Augh... so sad to see the canal in such a state. I've done a little research on canal boats since this incident and I didn't know that canal boats are still made from scratch in the UK... impressive! https://www.facebook.com/stoke.boats
I nearly bought one to live on a few years ago. Thankfully, I took it on a “try before you buy” basis because it turned out that I absolutely hated it. Continual cruising (not being able to stop in an area for more than 14 days) is a real ball ache and was rigorously enforced where I was by the equivalent of aquatic traffic wardens, narrowboats are difficult to secure against burglary, it’s pretty much impossible to own a car or motorbike unless you have a permanent mooring (which are ruinously expensive), a lot of the boaters seemed to have mental health problems and the state of many of the boats tied up along the stretches of river and canal on the outskirts of London gave the communities the appearance of floating shanty towns.
