Bristol Water should pay for Gloucester Docks dredging, meeting told

A water firm should be made to pay for canal dredging after pumping river water and silt into Gloucester Docks, a councillor has suggested.

Excess silt is preventing boats from mooring and silt levels have been increased by Bristol Water using the canal for drinking water supply.

Bristol Water said it had a contract to use the canal water for that purpose.

The Canal and River Trust manages the waterways and said it had already spent £1m trying to resolve the issue.

A public meeting on Thursday heard canal side firms' trade had suffered over Easter because boats had been unable to moor at Gloucester Docks.

The trust said it had been dredging since November to increase the depth for boats and it had already removed enough silt to fill eight Olympic-sized swimming pools.

A spokesperson for the trust said high levels of siltation were also the result of last year's drought when the River Severn was at historic lows.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said, at the time, river water was pumped into the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal to supply Bristol with drinking water, but that had increased the amount of silt in the Docks.

Gloucester Councillor Pam Tracey (Cons, Westgate) told the meeting: "If it's a problem created by supplying Bristol with water they should pay for it, why should Gloucester have to suffer?

"Has anyone contacted them to ask them to pay towards it? Everybody keeps passing the buck."

Bristol Water said it had a contract with The Canal and River Trust to use the Gloucester and Sharpness canal as a resilient water source for the Bristol Water area.

"Our contract with The Canal and River Trust means they are fully responsible for the maintenance and management of Gloucester Docks and how water is transferred into the canal," it said.

The trust said it had invested more than £1m in the past financial year to improve navigation in the docks.

"It was vital to ensure the availability of drinking water supply to Bristol that we pumped water in from the river to the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal as this provides the source of up to half of Bristol's drinking water requirements and needed to be protected.

"We have targeted our available dredging project resources to address key priority areas for our customers to ensure a navigable channel across the Dock, and to berths in Victoria Basin and the Barge arm."

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