Fish killed as vandals strike at canal locks

VANDALS caused the death of 20 fish after smashing open the locks on Rochdale Canal and draining water from a mile-and-half stretch.



They struck in the early hours of Friday at a section of the canal near Ashton Road West in Failsworth.

Walkers reported seeing the canal completely drained and the sight of dead fish on the canal bed.

Workers from British Waterways attended the scene on Saturday to repair the damage and refill the canal.

Near-by residents say vandalism and harassment from youths is putting fishermen off carrying out their hobby on the bankside.

Anthony McManus, of near-by West Street, said: ?The canal had been emptied for about a mile-and-half. Someone had smashed the chain off the locks and opened the lock. It?s youths vandalising the area.

?People won?t go fishing on there at all because of the youths hanging about there. There was quite a lot of dead fish. I do a bit of fishing myself and it will take a few years before it?s back up to the stocks of fish that were in it.?

A spokeswoman for the Environment Agency said the water level was now back to normal and there were no more fish in distress.

A British Waterways spokeswoman added: ?We did have quite a bit of vandalism over the weekend. Three locks were opened in Failsworth and they have flooded the canal and it went up on to the towpath and caused quite a few fish to die.?

Constant problem on this stretch and every other since BW open the canal up to boating again.
Nephew phoned me early Sat morning, he?d gone to fish the stretch, and found it empty. I reported it to Clerk of Works at BW.
I?m not convinced it?s down entirely to vandals. Boaters leave the sluices half open and it drains the length over night.

I have to say, since boating on the canal started again 4 years ago after 40 years closure, it has destroyed what was an excellent fishery and an important sssi site of 20 miles long.

And what have the Antis said about it? sweet F*** ALL