Photo Call Notice
FUND BRITAIN’S WATERWAYS AT ETRURIA CANALS FESTIVAL
30-31 MAY 2026
Issue date: 20 May 2026
Event: Gathering of narrowboats campaigning for Fund Britain’s Waterways (FBW) at Etruria Canals Festival, organised by the Etruria Canals Festival Group
Date: Saturday 30 & Sunday 31 May 2026
Location: On the site surrounding Etruria Industrial Museum, main entry over the stepped footbridge, off Kilndown Close, ST1 4RB
Time: The festival will be open to the public 11am-5pm on Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 May 2026.
Photo opportunities: A group of about 10 FBW boats will meet up and moor together for the Festival, providing an opportunity to meet the campaigners.
Why: Join us at Etruria Canals Festival for a visually compelling photo opportunity including narrowboats dressed with the banners of the Fund Britain’s Waterways campaign as well as historic boats and all the spectacle of the festival.
Etruria Canals Festival is a long-running free festival (started in the early 1990s) that celebrates the canal heritage and culture of Stoke-on-Trent. It is a vibrant two-day festival bringing together a historic boat gathering, heritage demonstrations, the mill in steam, a wide range of creative activities for all ages, performances and storytelling, live music, street food and beer tent, as well as a range of local charities and craft based stalls. This year’s event theme is ‘World of Gardens’ – taking inspiration from the 40th anniversary of the 1986 Garden Festival that transformed the local area.
Etruria is a shining example of the way in which canals are an integral part of the areas they pass through. Opposite the Etruria Industrial Museum stands a status of the 18th century engineer James Brindley, looking over the canals he was responsible for building. The canals enabled the rapid growth of the Potteries and the wider Industrial Revolution. Today they have been reimagined for leisure and are used and valued by communities as never before. Yet all the benefits brought to communities and businesses across the country are at risk as navigation authorities face mounting financial pressures and increasing impacts of all types, from climate change to new legislation as well as simply because of ageing infrastructure.
This is the reason that the Fund Britain’s Waterways (FBW) campaign was set up and is calling for a comprehensive national review of waterways infrastructure. Our rivers and canals are not just for boaters, or even for the millions of other people who use them to walk, cycle, jog, commute, canoe, paddle, fish or just relax. They are vital for local economies and the environment and an irreplaceable part of our national heritage. We owe it to future generations to look after our waterways and keep them safe and well maintained.
-ENDS-
About the Etruria Canals Festival Group:
The Etruria Canals Festival Group is made up of representatives from a number of different organisations and local residents who work together to co-run the event, including Etruria Industrial Museum, Jesse Shirley’s Bone and Flint Mill Volunteers, B. ARTS, Etruria Artists and Nimble Fingers. The event is supported by Canal & River Trust volunteers, with funding from Arts Council England, ward budget (Stoke-on-Trent City Council) and Severn Trent.
About Fund Britain’s Waterways (FBW):
FBW brings together a wide range of organisations with the sole purpose of campaigning collectively for an increase in government funding of Britain’s inland waterways to avert their decline, and to promote awareness of the huge economic, environmental, and social well-being value they provide. Established in June 2023, it already has more than160 members representing hundreds of thousands of users and supporters of inland waterways.
This year FBW has already organised campaign cruises on the Walsall Canal and on the tidal Thames, as part of the efforts to spread awareness across the country of the value of our varied inland waterways and the threat they face from underinvestment. Etruria Canals Festival will be a calling point on the main campaign cruise, which will culminate with groups of boats from Doncaster, Birmingham and Leicester gathering at the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port at the end of June before crossing the tidal Mersey to Liverpool. Following that another campaign cruise will travel along the River Great Ouse to Bedford for the Bedford River Festival on 18-19 July, completing the coverage from north western to south eastern waterways.
Contact:
For more information about the festival, contact the festival co-ordinator
Rebecca Frankenberg (rebecca.frankenberg@b-arts.org.uk, 07557 797695)
For more information about the museum and mill, contact Bernard Lovatt (info@etruriamuseum.org.uk, 07900 267711,
Etruria Industrial Museum, Etruria Vale Road, Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent ST1 4RB)
For further information about Fund Britain’s Waterways, or for further information about the cruise, contact the cruise organiser George Seward (george@corporatemergers.co.uk, 07710 501899)
Narrowboats flying FBW banners on a previous campaign cruise
(credit: Brian Sharples)
