Hidden haven of waterways open up to paddlers after major clear-up

Maidenhead's waterways are improving and expanding with each day. The Advertiser's chief reporter Adrian Williams got out on the canoe with dedicated waterways volunteers to see how much has changed.

From the middle of Maidenhead up towards Bray and the M4, a hidden gem has been growing.

Maidenhead's waterways have improved leaps and bounds over the course of recent history; once a flood relief channel, two decades ago York Stream was little more than a muddy ditch filled with shopping trolleys.

Careful work from volunteers in York Stream and beyond has helped build something very different – a three-mile navigable watercourse.

Work continues; Bray Cut, which largely was impassable a year ago, stretches from Green Lane Weir to the Thames at Bray and makes up a significant section of the waterways.

It was blocked up by eight fallen trees until last April, when they were removed by RBWM.

Before that, the only navigable bit was York Stream, which is basically Blackamoor Lane to Green Lane Weir.

The tree removal has opened up the course, allowing paddlers to get all the way from Maidenhead town centre to Bray.

What is revealed is an oasis of wildlife where birds call and hidden woodpeckers hammer away in the treetops.

In one short trip, this reporter spotted two species of deer, yellow wagtails, cormorants and egrets thriving in this hidden stretch.

Kingfishers – which waterway volunteers say can often be seen there – remained elusive that day, but appear as a flicker of blue, like a ‘huge dragonfly.’

One of the reasons this part of the waterway remains a hidden gem is because it isn't easy to get there.

A large water pipe near the railway viaduct lurks only about a metre above the water surface, which forces anyone approaching to duck right down to get underneath it.

Into the wild, there are waterweeds, brambles, fallen trees, floating logs and patches of hidden mud to worry about. An inexpert paddler could very well get stuck.

The good news is that, with qualified paddlers accompanying them, this stretch becomes available to novices.

That was the idea behind the Maidenhead Canoe Club, set up by Friends of Maidenhead Waterways (FoMW).

A canoe club ‘had long been an ambition’ for FoMW, but the fallen trees blocking the link to the Thames posed a problem.

When the council removed the biggest of these last April, the group decided ‘the time had come to test the appetite for paddling in the town.’

Set up in July, the club has more than 40 members so far and expects to grow significantly this year. Half the membership fees go towards maintaining the waterways.

As such, FoMW has been busy clearing Bray Cut of rubbish and cutting back brambles to make it a friendlier watercourse.

Dominic Hurst, a FoMW trustee, said there isn't as much respect for the waterways as he would hope; during our short trip on Friday, one volunteer, Robert Edmonds, fished up a bin bag’s worth of beer cans and spotted two shopping trolleys in the water.

On a big clear up on Saturday, volunteers picked up a dozen more bags of rubbish – bottles, cans and ‘all sorts of stuff.’

FoMW hope this will clear a significant backlog that has been growing on the Bray Cut stretch over time.

The navigable part of the waterways is moving further and further out of town, and FoMW wants to keep the wilder part of it somewhere where wildlife is respected.

By going out as part of the canoe club, they can make sure that happens – and that no one gets stuck on the mud.

Meanwhile, FoMW hopes to be able to install a dedicated canoe storage base close to the channel for its boats – it currently keeps the boats under Chapel Arches, which is not ideal.

Maidenhead Canoe Club has ‘many challenges ahead’ but the future ‘is looking bright’, it says.