The national politics and power think-tank Demos has just released a new report, Resilient Places, which reinforces everything that the Chesterfield Canal Trust has been saying about the social and economic advantages of completing the restoration of the whole canal from West Stockwith to Chesterfield.

Demos argues that, with spending cuts likely to reduce the number of new publicly-funded developments, effort should be made to bring existing heritage sites back into use. This could help physically to regenerate run-down urban areas, renew a sense of local community, and fits well with Prime Minister David Cameron's idea of the Big Society, the think tank adds.

The report asks how we can best plan and shape towns and cities in a world in which financial and material resources are short. By examining the foundational networks on which our towns and cities were built – railways, canals, sewers and industrial routeways – it argues that an important part of answering this question is through reappraising, repurposing and reusing the assets we already have and finding better ways of applying them to current, emerging and future needs. The recession need not lead to a halt to development; it can prompt us to alter practice and behaviours.

Canals, roads and railways are more than simply the communications infrastructure of cities; they also have the potential to be part of the infrastructure of identities and communities. They are the visual representation of how people have shaped the world in which they live and how society hangs together. Heritage infrastructure networks can help in the process of binding places together. Used in the right way they can help in civic story-telling, carry and channel civic emotions, and provide civic symbols and touch points.

The Canal Trust believes that with the moral support and influence of its Members and Partners, a completed Chesterfield Canal can be a major driver of developing resilience within communities along its banks.  Through the Closing the Gap campaign the Trust is calling on its Partners and Communities wholeheartedly to get behind the call for restoration and to develop and support bids for Lottery (and other) funding in order to complete the final nine miles of the Canal.

Trust Chair, Robin Stonebridge, commenting on the release of the Demos report, said, “ This is yet another well argued and researched case for restoring the Chesterfield Canal, and it offers a  clear challenge to the Trust, Partners and communities which says 'If not us, who; If not now, when?' This report demonstrates over and over again that canal restoration is good for the social well being of communities, the economy of the area and the health of those that use the canals. I believe that the people of Derbyshire, Rotherham and Nottinghamshire deserve to benefit in exactly the same way as communities along canals that have already been restored feel the benefits”

Note.

Today, there are about 30,000 leisure boats on the UK’s canal network and 3.4 million people visit its waters and banks each fortnight.

According to HM Treasury, out of the £330m total value of inland waterways managed and owned by British Waterways, the amenity and recreational use amounts to £230m, and the use for freight only £0.7m. British Waterways cares for some 2,200 miles of canals and rivers – 80 per cent of canals and rivers in the UK. Its property portfolio includes 3,115 bridges, 1,654 locks, 417 aqueducts, 91 reservoirs and 54 tunnels. Many of these are listed, making British Waterways the owner of the largest number of listed buildings in the UK after the National Trust and the Church of England. It is also the owner of many wetland sites, scheduled buildings, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and conservation areas.

Robin Evans, chief executive of British Waterways, said: "Forty years ago we tore down the fences that prevented local people from using and enjoying their waterways. The results have been astonishing. "Communities across Britain now use their canals, rivers and towpaths in ways that their original builders could never have foreseen. “We now want to go further by removing the remaining obstacles which bar people from taking a greater role in their local waterways."