Member

In 2012, as an MP, I welcomed the creation of the trust, which had an office in my constituency. Cheshire has a large number of canals running around it—the Cheshire ring and the River Weaver. I worked with the trust to repair the Sutton Weaver bridge. Through Cheshire we have several iconic black and white lattice bridges; they are swing-bridges, and in previous years allowed boat traffic to travel under road bridges. They were built in the 1920s in the days of steam engines. Working with the trust, we managed to get funding from the local authority and successfully built a new bridge in keeping, on time and within budget. I am not knocking the Canal & River Trust because it does a great job in so many ways, but on this issue it is failing.