Boat owners on the UK’s longest canal will be unable to move their boats next week due to water shortages, while 5 million people have been warned they could soon face a hose ban.
Sections of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal will be closed for periods next week after a lack of rainfall led to low levels in some reservoirs in Yorkshire and Lancashire, leaving the canal’s locks unable to be filled.
Yorkshire Water also warned it may have to introduce water restrictions, such as a ban on hosepipes, as water supplies are 18% lower than usual for this time of year.
Neil Dewis, head of water supply for Yorkshire Water, which serves more than 5 million people, said water levels in the region’s reservoirs were now as low as they were in 1995, when 400 tankers of water had to be brought in from elsewhere in the country .
He said: “There has been very little rain with just a few short, sharp showers which are not getting the water we need into our reservoirs and rivers.”
The opening hours of many locks on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal were reduced in May, with some being locked from 4pm to conserve water, but a lack of recent rainfall has necessitated more drastic measures.
Water use on the canal hit a record high in June due to an increase in boat traffic when a lock near Skipton, North Yorkshire, reopened after repair work. A total of 20,000 liters of water are used each time a boat passes through a lock.
The hot dry weather has also led to warnings from emergency services and water safety charities about the dangers of swimming in open water during the heatwave
Tributes have already been paid to two 16-year-old boys who drowned in separate incidents just days apart this week.
The family of Jamie Lewin, a promising boxer who drowned in a quarry near Wigan on Saturday night, have described their son as “one in a million”.
The teenager, from Southport, Lancashire, died after swimming in the water at Good Delph, Appley Bridge, which previously claimed the lives of two other teenagers in 2016 and 1999 and was the subject of a local campaign to restrict access.
In a statement released by Lancashire Police, his mother Steph Lewin described Jamie as a “promising boxer who loved life and had so much to look forward to”.
She said: “He was so loved by everyone.”
Jamie’s death came just two days before the drowning of another 16-year-old boy, Alfie McCraw, whose body was pulled from a canal in West Yorkshire on Monday.
Police received reports that a boy was in trouble in the South Washlands area of the Aire and Calder Navigation, near Wakefield. Emergency services later recovered the body of Alfie, who was from the area and had just finished his GCSE exams.
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Wakefield Station Commander Jimmy Fitt said: “This is a truly tragic incident and our thoughts go out to all of Alfie’s loved ones.
“When the warm weather hits, we see a spike in the number of people getting into the water – and that can unfortunately prove fatal.
“Our advice is not to enter unsupervised water – as drag, cold water shock and hidden dangers can mean even strong swimmers will find themselves in difficulty.”
Around 400 people drown each year in the UK, while in July 2021 there were 49 accidental drowning deaths in just two weeks across the country.
Lee Hurd, charity director at The Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) UK, said: “I am deeply saddened to say that we have already seen a number of drownings in the last few weeks as temperatures have soared.
“It is vital to ensure that everyone has an understanding of water safety and it is their responsibility to educate their family and friends on how water can be used safely to prevent such tragedies.”
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