KACT Receives Royal Honour For Leading Restoration of Kennet and Avon

Organisation that started out half a century ago to save canal receives Queens Award for Voluntary Service for guiding restoration of 87-mile K&A into the future

The Kennet and Avon Canal Trust (KACT), which aims to protect, enhance and promote the waterway, has been awarded the prestigious Queens’ Award for Voluntary Service, the highest recognition for volunteer groups in  the UK.

The organisation, which celebrated its 50^th anniversary last year, received the accolade for its leadership of the restoration of the canal and its buildings over the past half century, and for creating a landscape and amenity valued by the whole community.

Over those years it has enabled the restoration of 85 derelict locks (including Caen Hill Flight) the repair of 172 pairs of gates and a leaking canal bed, crumbling aqueducts and two abandoned pumping stations – to enable to enable Her Majesty The Queen to officially re-open the waterway in 1990.  

Rob Dean, chair of the KACT Trustees, says, “This is a great honour for us and an absolute tribute to the tireless work of thousands of volunteers from Bath to Burghfield, Wilton to Woolhampton, and others in between, who have given their time so generously over the past 50 years to complete the restoration of the K&A. To receive this award from Her Majesty after she re-opened the waterway 23 years ago is the icing on the cake for us.

“People have given from a few spare hours to the best part of their lives to the K&A, everything from helping out in our tea rooms, crewing our fantastic fleet of boats, hours of form-filling for grants, to clearing canal beds and towpaths.  I and the rest of the Trustees will always be incredibly grateful to them, many of who are sadly no longer with us, and also to our present generation of fantastic volunteers who are helping to protect and enhance the waterway for future generations. This award will propel our very necessary work into the future.”

The KACT is working on a number of new family-friendly events this year, to continue to make its historic buildings and attractions open to the public, including opportunities to drive a steam engine at Crofton Pumping Station, near Marlborough, a sponsored walk on 15^th June, as well as regular boat trips out of Devizes, Bradford-on-Avon, Hungerford and Newbury. It is also organising this year’s Reading Waterfest on 15^th June and Newbury Waterways Festival on 23^rd June.  It continues to need volunteers with a wide range of skills - both business and practical - to keep the waterway enjoyable for the millions who use and visit it every year.

For more information about KACT events or to volunteer, contact  office.manager@katrust.org.uk or call 01380 721279

About the K&ACT:                                                                                

Pioneering K&ACT volunteers have been the guardians of the waterway for the past 50 years, having saved the canal from closure.  During that time, volunteers helped rebuild the canal, leading to its grand re-opening on 8^th August 1990 by the Queen, aboard the Trust’s Rose of Hungerford cruiseboat, in the very place it had been completed the first time, 180 years previously.  In 1996, Kennet and Avon Canal Trust volunteers, along with British Waterways (now the Canal and River Trust), led a consortium of organisations, including Councils through which the canal ran, to successfully obtain £25m from the Heritage Lottery Fund - the largest award ever made by the Fund - to underwrite a £29m restoration project.  Its completion in 2003 was marked by a visit from Prince Charles.  In 2010, the canal was finally granted cruiseway status by the Government.

Since then the organisation has continued to support the region’s pivotal tourist economy, by protecting the proud heritage of the waterway’s important buildings, investing to attract new visitors to the region, and widening access and educational opportunities for local people.

About the Queens Award for Voluntary Service:

This is the highest award given to volunteer groups across the UK and was created to mark the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II.  Local assessment panels look at all the nominations, often performing site visits, and decide which ones to send to the National Award Committee.

The committee makes recommendations to the Cabinet Office, which sends a final list to the Queen for her approval. Winners are announced on June 2 every year in the London Gazette.