Dudley Council

Part One: Spatial Strategy and Policies (Regulation 19)

Ends on 29 November 2024 (8 days remaining)

Canals

11.60. The canal network is one of Dudley's most defining historical and environmental assets and its preservation and enhancement remains a major priority for the borough. Canals have played an important role in shaping the development of Dudley since the 18th Century. Today the canal network is not only important for its historic and archaeological value, but for its nature conservation, recreation and tourism value. Canals and their environments add value to provide a high-quality environment for new developments and form a valuable part of the green infrastructure network in the borough and beyond.

Policy DLP36 Canals Comment

  1. The Dudley canal network comprises the canals and their surrounding landscape corridors, designated and non-designated heritage assets, character, settings, views and interrelationships. The canal network provides a focus for future development through its ability to deliver a high-quality environment and enhanced accessibility for boaters, pedestrians, cyclists, and other non-car-based modes of transport.
  2. All development proposals likely to affect the canal network must:
    1. demonstrate that they will not adversely affect the structural integrity of canal infrastructure[31] to avoid increased flood risk, land instability and/or harm to the usability of the canal (including its towpath) as a green-blue infrastructure asset.
    2. ensure that any proposals for reinstatement or reuse would not adversely impact on locations of significant environmental value where canals are not currently navigable.
    3. protect and enhance its special historic, architectural, archaeological, and cultural significance and their setting, including the potential to record, preserve and restore such features.
    4. protect and enhance its nature conservation value including habitat creation and restoration along the waterway and its surrounding environs. The ecological status of the waterbodies must be considered as part of any development proposal and appropriate mitigation and enhancement implemented when necessary.
    5. protect and enhance its visual amenity, key views and setting.
    6. protect and enhance water quality in the canal and protect water resource availability both in the canal and the wider environment.
    7. Reinstate, introduce and / or upgrade towpaths and access points including through the introduction of suitably designed and sized wayfinding information and link them into high quality, wider, integrated pedestrian and cycle networks, particularly where they can provide links to transport hubs, centres and opportunities for employment.
  3. Where opportunities exist, all development proposals within the canal network must:
    1. enhance and promote its role in providing opportunities for leisure, recreation and tourism activities, as well as the delivery of the wider wellbeing agenda.
    2. enhance and promote opportunities for off-road walking, cycling, and boating access, including for small-scale commercial freight activities.
    3. protect and enhance the historical, geological, and ecological value of the canal network and its associated infrastructure. Consideration should be given to the existing ecological value of the network with appropriate mitigation and enhancement implemented when necessary.
    4. positively relate to the opportunity presented by the waterway by promoting high quality design, including providing active frontages onto the canal and by improving the public realm.
    5. sensitively integrate with the canal and any associated canal-side features and, where the opportunities to do so arises, incorporate canal features into the development.
    6. Facilitate continued access to Canal & River Trust assets for inspection and maintenance purposes.
  4. Development proposals must be fully supported by evidence that the above factors have been fully considered and properly incorporated into their design and layout.
  5. Where proposed development overlays part of the extensive network of disused canal features, the potential to record, preserve and restore such features must be fully explored unless canals have been entirely removed. Development on sites that include sections of disused canals should protect the line of the canal through the detailed layout of the proposal. Development will not be permitted that would sever the route of a disused canal or prevent the restoration of a canal link where there is a realistic possibility of restoration, wholly or in part.
  6. Safeguard the amenity of existing residential moorings when planning consent is sought on sites in close proximity or adjacent to existing moorings.

Residential Canal Moorings

  1. For residential moorings, planning consent will only be granted for proposals that include the provision of:
    1. the necessary boating facilities.
    2. appropriate access to cycling and walking routes.
    3. an adequate level of amenity for boaters, not unduly impacted upon by reason of noise, fumes or other nearby polluting activities.
  2. In determining a planning application for residential moorings, account will be taken of the effect that such moorings and their associated activities may have on the amenities or activities of nearby residential or other uses.
Justification

11.61. The development of the canal network had a decisive impact on the evolution of industry and settlement during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. It was a major feat of engineering and illustrates a significant stage in human history - development of mercantile inland transport systems in Britain's industrial revolution during the pre-railway age. As such, the historic value of Dudley's and the Black Country's canal network today should be acknowledged, promoted, protected, and enhanced. The network also plays a major part in the Black Country Geopark, as the mineral wealth of the area meant that canals were a vital link to areas within and beyond the Black Country and continue to provide this link today.

11.62. The canal network is a major unifying characteristic Dudley and the wider Black Country's historic landscape. The routes of the canals that make up the network have created landscape corridors with a distinctive character and identity based on the industries and activities that these transport routes served and supported. The network has significant value for nature conservation, tourism, health and wellbeing and recreation and the potential to make an important contribution to economic regeneration through the provision of high-quality environments for new developments and a network of pedestrian, cycle and water transport routes. The canal network in the borough and beyond forms a valuable continuous habitat network, that links to other ecological sites. Many of them are also designated as local nature sites in part or for whole sections of the canal corridor.

11.63. It is also important for development in the borough to take account of disused canal features, both above and below ground. Part of the historic canal network has survived in use to the present day; a network of tramways also served the canals. Proposals should preserve the line of the canal through the detailed layout of the development. Where appropriate, opportunities should be explored for the potential to preserve the line of the canal as part of the wider green infrastructure network. Where feasible and sustainable, proposals should consider the potential for the restoration of disused sections of canal.

11.64. It is acknowledged that there are aspirations to restore disused sections of the canal network within the borough. However, it is also recognised that there are very limited opportunities to reinstate such canal sections as navigable routes because of the extensive sections that have been filled in, built over or removed making their reinstatement (and necessary original realignment) financially unviable and unachievable within the Plan period.

11.65. There are also areas within the disused parts of the canal network that have naturally regenerated into locations with significant ecological and biodiversity value; to re-open or intensify use on these sections of the network could have an adverse impact on sensitive habitats and species.              

11.66. Any development proposals that come forward to restore sections of the canal network will be expected to demonstrate that the proposals are sustainable, sufficient water resources exist, and that works will not adversely affect the existing canal network or the environment.             

11.67. Residential moorings must be sensitive to the needs of the canal-side environment in conjunction with nature conservation, green belt and historic conservation policies but also, like all residential development, accord with sustainable housing principles in terms of design and access to local facilities and a range of transport choices.

Evidence
  • Black Country Historic Landscape Characterisation Study (2019)
  • Historic Landscape Characterisation studies
  • Adopted Conservation Area Character Appraisals
  • Historic England Good Practice Advice Notes (GPAs) and Historic England Advice Notes (HEANs)
  • Black Country Canal Strategy - Active Black Country (2023)

[31] Canal infrastructure includes (but is not limited to) waterway walls, embankments, cuttings, locks, culverts, weirs, aqueducts, tunnels and bridges

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