About Us

Campaigning for the use, maintenace, and restoration of Britain's inland waterways

The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) is a registered charity, founded in 1946, which advocates the conservation, use, maintenance, restoration and development of the inland waterways for public benefit.

IWA members’ interests include boating, towpath walking, industrial archaeology, nature conservation and many other activities associated with the inland waterways.

IWA works closely with navigation authorities, other waterway bodies, a wide range of national and local authorities, voluntary, private and public sector organisations.

We campaign and lobby for support and encourage public participation in the inland waterways. IWA actively supports waterway restoration and through its volunteering organisation, Waterway Recovery Group, organises and subsidises over 20 week-long waterway restoration holiday schemes for volunteers around the country each year, as well as conducting multiple work parties around the country on most weekends. These schemes allow young people to participate in the preservation and restoration of our heritage, and in doing so learn restoration and heritage skills.

More than 500 miles of canals and navigable rivers have been re-opened to public use since the Association was founded in 1946. Currently another 500 miles of derelict inland waterways are the subject of restoration plans. IWA is organised into 34 local branches covering geographical areas of the country, through which volunteers coordinate activities as diverse as policing planning applications likely to be detrimental to the waterway corridor, providing engineering expertise to local waterway societies, raising money for restoration schemes and educating the public on the value and benefits of their local waterways.

In addition to this work, IWA also manages the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation, which it saved from closure in 2005.