First canal since 19th century is opened in wave of restoration

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Leading article: All aboard!

Britain's first canal for more than a century was declared open yesterday, 30 years after high-speed travel consigned inland waterways to near-oblivion.

The 3.3-mile Ribble Link at Preston, Lancashire, was designed by the engineer John Rennie in 1792 to connect the 58-mile Lancaster Canal and its coalfields to the rest of Britain, but it was abandoned when his project ran out of funds.

A horse-drawn tram ran from 1803 until railways superseded canals in 1857. But parts of the Lancaster were filled to drive parts of the M6 over it in 1968.

The last waterway to be built in Britain was the Manchester Ship Canal, completed in 1894. But now the canals and navigations are being restored as fast as they were being built in 1800, at a rate of 200 miles a year. With work advanced on re-establishing the northern sections of "The Lanky", Rennie's 200-year-old idea of a link has at last been accomplished.

The £6m project, which includes nine locks, four bridges and two miles of footpaths and cycleways has taken two years, part-funded by a £2.7m Millennium Commission grant, plus private donations.

The link is expected to reap new tourism revenues, and plans are afoot to extend the canal to Kendal, linking the Lake District by water to London for the first time.