Canal News

The future is a slow boat to Bootle
Jun 21 2006

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is one of our city's most neglected assets. Now there are plans to change that with boat trips for tourists and shoppers.
[The] idea is for a canal boat to carry shoppers the four miles from Vauxhall in the heart of old Liverpool to the Strand shopping centre, Bootle. It is a modest enough start, but his ambition stretches into the future.
A £20m British Waterways project is already under way to extend the canal from the Stanley Dock to the Albert Dock with a cut across the Pier Head. It is hoped that it will be completed by 2008 when, as the whole world knows, Liverpool will be the European Capital of Culture.
This could be the opportunity for the city to benefit from one of its most neglected assets, as the boats would pass by the old Scotland Road area.

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This is a very good idea. It will bring people to a very quiet stretch of canal as well as providing training and jobs for young offenders. It is a shame that the canal was filled in between Pall Mall and Eldonian villiage as a link between Bootle and Liverpool would have been useful, with stops at Stanely Dock, Vauxhall and Litherland. Obviously there is the dock link but that link will have locks and wont be as direct as Pall Mall was. I look forward to taking a trip on this section of the Leeds Liverpool in the future.