A mile-long section of the River Aire and the Aire & Calder Navigation has been ‘adopted’.

Not-for-profit organisation Canal Connections – which aims to explore opportunities for social regeneration offered by the waterways using community engagement – hopes to give a new lease of life to the stretch between Skelton Road Bridge and Knostrop Lock. This stretch includes the popular Thwaites Mill Museum.

In 2012 the Canal & River Trust announced that it was giving communities across England and Wales the chance to adopt sections of canal or river. Whilst the Trust still owns the canal and carries out year-round maintenance, adoption groups are helping bring important added benefits to the waterways by carrying out towpath improvements and improving the overall appearance of the canal.

Canal Connections will embark on a programme of environmental and access improvements and hopes that the work opportunities offered by the scheme will help people of all ages to realise their own potential.

For more information on the adoption scheme click here.

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