The Bugsworth Basin Heritage Trust (BBHT), formerly known as the Inland Waterways Protection Society (IWPS), is a British organisation founded in 1958 to work for the restoration of the canal system. Its members carried out surveys of canals and produced reports in support of their retention when much of the canal network was under threat. Following official support for use of the canals for leisure activities in 1967, the Society have concentrated their efforts on the restoration and operation of Bugsworth Basin, located at the southern end of the Peak Forest Canal, which was one of the first canals that they surveyed in 1958.
Background
Following the nationalisation of much of the canal network in 1948, and despite official attitudes which often saw the canals only as commercial highways, there had been some progress towards using them for pleasure cruising. On 17 March 1954, the Minister of Transport announced in Parliament that the British Transport Commission would be considering the plight of the network. A Board of Survey, under the chairmanship of Lord Rusholme, prepared the report, which was published in April 1955. This divided the existing canals into three groups. Group 1, consisting of the River Trent, the River Severn, the River Lee Navigation, the River Weaver, the Aire and Calder Navigation and the southern part of the Grand Union Canal, should be retained and improved. This group included just of waterway. A further were included in group 2. This group included most of the narrow canals that still had significant commercial traffic and some wide canals such as the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The report suggested that attempts to increase the commercial traffic on these canals should be made, but that they should be relegated to group 3 if the traffic did not appear. Group 3 canals, which covered all the rest, should be considered for disposal to organisations other than the British Transport Commission or closed. The group included of canal, but about one third of them were already closed, having been abandoned as a result of the LMS General Powers Act of 1945.
This approach was considered by the Bowes Committee, which published their report, entitled The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Inland Waterways (Cmnd 486) in July 1958. This proposed two groups of waterways, Class A and Class B, that were similar to the groups 1 and 2 of the 1954 report, and that all other canals should be developed for purposes that did not include navigation, or should be eliminated.
Organisation
Amidst fears that there might be little of the canal network left unless urgent action was taken, a number of canal enthusiasts in the East Midlands formed the Inland Waterways Protection Society on 21 April 1958. It was initially a breakaway movement from the Inland Waterways Association (IWA), which at the time was undergoing radical reorganisation to become a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee. The president was Sir Geoffrey Lowles, who was still a member of the IWA council at the time, and had opposed the reorganisation. Teddy Edwards was its waterways consultant, and Mrs Bessie Bunker of Sheffield became its secretary. She was accused by Robert Aickman, the chairman of the IWA, of being the founder of the new society, and although she rejected the idea, she did admit that it would probably not have been formed without her.
By the time the Bowes Report was published in July, the IWPS was ready to Act, and immediately started to visit and review the Class C waterways, so that they would have facts to argue the case for retention, and could produce informed reports on their condition. During 1958, they succeeding in covering the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, the Dearne and Dove Canal and the Chesterfield Canal. Reports on the Pocklington Canal, the Macclesfield Canal and the Peak Forest Canal followed in early 1959, and other canals were surveyed subsequently.