Bridgewater Canal: Poor maintenance or Climate Change that caused the collapse?

During the floods of 1st January many areas of Greater Manchester had significant rainfall that continued from New Years Eve which meant flooding.

The Bridgewater Canal collapsed during New Years Day further South West of Altrincham, the scene looked more like a bomb had hit it, even from drone footage seen shown how bad the damage was and more importantly how long it will be before its fixed!

On social media debates were underway as to why the canal collapsed and mostly people believed that it was poor maintenance that caused the collapse whilst others believed it was something called Climate Change.

We believe its more about the owners of the canal possibly not maintaining the canal as well as they should which is concerning for the rest of the Bridgewater Canal which goes through Broadheath, Sale and Stretford.

Climate Change on the other hand factually hasn’t been proven, despite all what has been said and written no one anywhere can prove our climate is in crisis, statistics show a heating up of our planet, then in other statistics we are actually cooler, which is it?

The flooding in previous years did not come with any mentions that it was due to climate change, the canal collapse it seems was a structural problem, a weakness that lasted as long as it could until it looked more like a bomb site.

If the owners have not maintained that part of the canal then its likely all of it will be like that and who knows if another collapse will happen, it is likely it won’t but you never know.

After the collapse all the canal turned a bright brown colour although we are not yet sure if it was to do with the canal collapse or something more suspicious, in recent times reports came in about people on barges throwing out toxic waste into the canal, lots of diesel spills happen frequently and who knows whats at the bottom of the canal.

In the UK we have always had bad weather during the winter months, we have bad floods before, and heaps of snow, and strong winds, no changes until the sun becomes stronger and the daylight becomes longer during the summer months and then it becomes warmer and if we are lucky summer of 2025 will be the best yet!