'Black Country canals are full of litter'

Daisy Hampshire travels the country on a narrowboat from 1936 and spends every summer in the Black Country and Birmingham

Canals in the Black Country and Birmingham are full of litter and covered in algae, a narrowboater who spends her summers in the area says.

Daisy Hampshire said the area's waterways are not being properly looked after.

She added it would be easy to blame the Canal & River Trust (CRT), a charity which looks after waterways across England and Wales, but that it was everyone's responsibility, especially those who dumped rubbish.

Last week, 4,000 litres (879 gallons) of toxic chemicals spilled into a Walsall canal, affecting a 12-mile stretch of waterway. The CRT said it was out cleaning waterways every day.

Daisy Hampshire also runs a cafe, called Daisy's Bakin Butty, on a narrowboat

Ms Hampshire, originally from Surrey, travels the country on two 1930s narrowboats with her husband, Lloyd, spending all summer in the Black Country, Birmingham and Wolverhampton.

Rubbish she has seen in the area recently includes fridges, sofas, and "thousands" of single-use bottles and cans.

"It would be easy to blame the Canal & River Trust, but it's not just them that's at fault," she said.

"It's everyone that has dumped rubbish in a canal, it's boaters that feel it's ok to leave their rubbish anywhere."

A fridge freezer dumped in a canal in the Black Country

It was the heritage surrounding West Midlands' canal which made them so special for her, she said.

"The factories and industrial buildings have been here hundreds of years," she said.

"Other areas lose them, their history is taken away and replaced with new housing developments, but here you still have that history."

She added she felt strongly that if people do not take responsibility for the canals then they may slowly start to disappear.

Algae and rubbish cover the surface of this stretch of canal in the Black Country

Ms Hampshire was moored in Brownhills, about six miles away from the source of the toxic spillage, when news broke about it.

She said: "I'm very angry, I'm sad. I don't understand how this has happened.

"The fish, the vegetation, it's all going to be destroyed. It's going to take years to get it back to normality for them."

The Canal & River Trust started a fundraiser for urgent work to help save wildlife, which passed its target on the second day after an anonymous donation of £10,000.

A spokesperson for the trust said teams were out every day clearing litter, removing weeds and other tasks.

"On top of that we have our larger-scale maintenance programme, which includes dredging, replacing lock gates and the like.

"Sadly, some of the issues mentioned are some of the challenges we face managing urban waterways.

"Litter is a social problem and unfortunately often ends up getting blown into canals and stuck."