West Bank Boat Club have been given permission by Halton Borough Council to attempt to temporarily increase the water level in the Sankey Canal at Spike IsIand to enable boats to be safely removed from the canal.

By using the Spring tide last weekend, the boat club managed to move two boats into the lock, and will repeat this exercise next month to remove other, larger boats from the canal.

The club wants make use of the Spring tide on 14 September by trapping as much water into the canal as possible. They would then try to increase the water level in the canal over the following days by pumping water in from the lock at each high tide.

To assist with this the Council will increase the height of the dam it recently installed and make it more watertight.

This exercise will be carried out purely for the purpose of moving boats out of the canal directly into the River Mersey, or closer to the canal bank so they could be lifted out.

It must be stressed that this is not a long-term solution to the low water level issue, and it is not possible to fill the canal completely by pumping from this location.

Derek White, Chair of West Bank Boat Club, said: “We are delighted that the Council has given us permission to try this. There are some large and expensive boats in the canal and we need to help the owners to get them out into open water.”