Flooding and silt hitting boating business

Tracey Baxter says the business has been hampered by wet weather and silt blocking a main lock on the waterways

A boat-hire company says it is 50% down on its holiday trade due to wet weather and a major silting issue at an important gateway lock.

Fox Narrowboats, based in March in Cambridgeshire, has been hiring out boats since the 1970s and said this has been a "challenging year".

The Salters Lode lock, near Downham Market in Norfolk, was shut from early April until mid-June, meaning boaters in The Fens could not access Ely, Cambridge, St Ives or Huntingdon.

It was de-silted by the Environment Agency in May and June, but the agency said further work was being "hampered" by the wet weather and flooding.

The lock, at the confluence of Well Creek and the River Great Ouse, is operated by the Middle Level Commissioners, while the Environment Agency is responsible for the channel entrances to the lock.

The Great Ouse at Salters Lode lock has been heavily silted up this year

Tracey Baxter, a director at Fox Narrowboats, says the business has suffered cancellations for their holiday boats, private moorings and boat repairs.

"The River Nene, which runs through Stanground lock Peterborough and the River Great Ouse have been in flood over the past few weeks so our regular mooring customers, who keep their vessels here over winter can't reach us, so we are 30% down on that.

"We also do boat repair and servicing and again some boaters just cannot get to us... they can't get any enough height from the tide to get the boat over the silt.

"We have a 68-foot vessel currently stuck the wrong side that can't get back.

"The same issue put the lock out of action from Easter when we should have been booming."

Flooding on the River Great Ouse has meant a couple, in their 80s, are still on board a Fox Narrowboat a month after their holiday started

"A couple in their 80s took out one of our boats in September and are still stuck in Godmanchester because the Great Ouse is still at too high a level for them to return here.

"They only thought they were going for two weeks and we gave them the option to abandon the craft or stay on board for free.

"They chose the latter and are still there. We do food shops for them twice a week and had to surround the vessel with scaffold poles to stop it ending up in the nearby meadow. It weighs 12 tonnes, so we wouldn't want it on the bank."

Ms Baxter said she might have to rethink the business due to the increasing uncertainty of accessibility caused by changing weather patterns.

"We might end up having to just do only short breaks using the 90 miles of Middle Level Commissioners waterways. We find it so hard having to phone customers to tell them they can't get to their favourite destinations due to circumstances beyond our control," she said.

A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said: "We regularly clear silt blockages to keep open the navigation link for about 500 boats crossing each year between [our] navigation on the River Great Ouse system and the Middle Level Commissioners’ navigation.

"The opportunities to clear silt blockages are hampered by prolonged wet weather conditions."