Canal and River Trust have announced that they are “Prioritising” the repair of Anderton Boat Lift but say the work is a year away and it will only be half open by 2027. (see their press release below).
The guillotine gates – one of which suffered a broken wire almost a year ago – are each basically the same as a standard passenger lift, used the world over, and normally fixed within hours. Unlike a passenger lift, there’s not really a safety issue because there is never anything under the gates when it is operated.
Their bespoke £2m repair idea – which has taken a year to figure out – is an utter waste of taxpayers’ money.
It’s ironic that CRT are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the lift this year.
There is a lot of anger and frustration in the boating community (see below), many of whom, like the RWNS President John Tackley, were involved in raising funds to restore the lift in 2002. Some boats were trapped on the Weaver all year and paid to be craned off at great expense. Meanwhile many businesses on the river are suffering.
The delay is a devastating below and we are calling for a simpler, faster and less expensive solution to avoid irreversible damage to the vibrancy of the River Weaver.
Photo: Cheshire Eye in the Sky
CRT Press Release 27.11.25
Anderton Boat Lift gate repairs prioritised to get navigation back open
The Canal & River Trust is today announcing that it will be prioritising the programme of works at Anderton Boat Lift during the year ahead that will see the ‘Cathedral of the Canals’ back open and operational for boaters.
The investment will enable the lift to transfer boats between the Trent & Mersey Canal and the River Weaver once again in 2027. This will remedy the fault with the structure’s caisson gates, discovered during routine maintenance earlier this year, and also provide an overdue update to the lift’s operating system required to make the lift’s passage of boats more resilient.
A much larger project at the Anderton site, that would require additional and unaffordable capital expenditure from the Trust alongside the submission of a successful bid to The National Lottery Heritage Fund, is being paused. This means prioritising the investment needed for navigation but deferring the painting of the lift’s three-storey high iron superstructure together with investment in the attraction’s Visitor Centre.
Jon Horsfall, regional director for the Canal & River Trust, comments: “The priority for our charity is getting the lift open and operational for navigation. It is a remarkable structure and a defining landmark of Britain’s waterways that continues to hold national significance for the canal network.
“The team remains committed to the long-term future of the Anderton Boat Lift. We are focussing on the works required to reopen navigation, whilst pausing the additional spend elsewhere at the lift which is currently unaffordable. In doing so, we are making sure that the limited money our charity has stretches as far as possible so that there is adequate investment in other key areas for navigation including locks, bridges, aqueducts and the network as a whole.
“I’d like to thank our volunteers, donors, partners and the continued interest and vital support we received from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, both here at Anderton but also across the North West and wider canal network.”
The Trust has already commissioned the detailed design of new gate lifting equipment to replace the wire rope system. The installation will happen over the winter of 2026/27 with one caisson being opened in time for the summer season in 2027 and the other caisson also opening as soon as possible after that. Although this seems a long time off, the works are complicated and time consuming. They will see a new lifting mechanism installed on ten separate gates, replacing the current ropes, wires and pulleys. The new system will be robust, future proof, safe to operate and safer to maintain.
Anderton Boat Lift remains a popular visitor attraction, and the team is excited to welcome guests over the winter period. The Anderton Boat Lift Visitor Centre and coffee shop are open every weekend (10am-4pm) throughout the winter season. Don’t miss the free drop-in craft activities running this December, and popular Santa Cruises for songs and stories with Santa and his elves as you travel along the River Weaver.
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Reaction on social media
So for 150 years winches, cables and pulleys sufficed, but now rather than minor redesign and maintenance it’s necessary to spend large sums of money and long periods of time designing a high tech replacement. There was a saying in the drawing office, ‘Anyone can design a complicated way of achieving the requirements, but it takes a designer to find a simple and elegant solution.
CRT has failed…time to withhold payments for rent and licence…this just isn’t good enough…
Absolute Joke! Been way to long already.
…You now have a plan a very disappointing 11 months after the closure. However this remains an unacceptably long period of time. Surely you can develop an interim safe solution to allow limited passage through 2026. It is hardly difficult to envisage how this could be done with negligible additional risk to your staff, volunteers and the general public… Stop hiding behind ‘health and safety’ and work to find a safe option for operation. A commercial operation could not accept this level of outage…
The release says that the work will only start over the winter of 2026, why a year without any work?
Provide open and free access to and from the rest of the canal system via Ellesmere Port and the Ship Canal.
If their bonuses relied on it working it would soon be repaired.
How the hell is the word “prioritising” applicable to the bull & bluster CRT updates on the repair of the Anderton Lift?
