Join us at our Autumn Showcase between 10.00am – 9.00pm on the 14th of September.
Come and view our amazing selection of narrowboats, join us for a bite to eat and drink at the cafe and listen to some amazing acoustic music from 4pm.
Our glamping tents and electric boats are available to hire during the day too!
Find out more
We’re thrilled to announce a fantastic new partnership between Aqueduct Marina and Water Freedom. Starting on the 14th of September, you can find Water Freedom’s cutting-edge water purification solutions at Aqueduct Marina in Nantwich, Cheshire.
Join us in the Chandlery for an all-day demo, running from 9 AM to 4 PM
Find out more
This year’s Crick Boat show proved to be the ideal place for The Yacht Harbour Association (TYHA) to present Aqueduct Marina with the first Clean Marina award for an inland marina. Many of the marina’s staff attended the event at which MD Robert Parton and Jon White, TYHA’s General Manager, spoke after the presentation to staff members of a certificate of compliance and Clean Marina flag.
During the presentation, Jon White praised the team at Aqueduct for the amount of work they put in to gain the award, saying, “They have put a tremendous amount of time, effort and hard work, alongside some financial investment into gaining this award. When we first visited, we provided a report with an action plan, and they went away, committed to the plan and have delivered outstanding results.”
Jon White went on to say that gaining a Clean Marina Award is not a box-ticking exercise. “After the initial assessment, the marina is given an action plan, which may require some investment on their part, communications to berth holders or the introduction of new ways of working. They then have to provide evidence that they have committed to and fulfilled the plan and achieve an 80% score in each of the different components that make up the award.”
Robert Parton, Managing Director, Aqueduct Marina, said, “We are naturally delighted to achieve the new Clean Marina standard here at Aqueduct Marina. The inspection was rigorous, so we had to amend a few activities and embed some company policies, making the exercise a useful project. We are, without a doubt, a better and more environmentally aware marina as a result. Aqueduct Marina has, for some time, had an ongoing focus on reducing its environmental impact. We are delighted to win the accreditation and to be the first inland marina. Having already installed electric car charging, introduced greener products in the Chandlery and now offering HVO diesel, we aim to reduce our carbon footprint even more. And we’re pleased to say our customers are fully engaged and supporting the effort.”
The Clean Marina award was launched in 2021 to help marinas get the basics right such as blackwater capture and treatment, correctly managing segregated and hazardous waste, spill prevention and treatment, wash-down capture and filtration, drain interception, using sustainable products and preventing plastic pollution, and of course, influencing tenants, contractors and boaters to be more sustainable too. Initially launched in Australasia, the award has been gained by five coastal marinas, with a number of others currently looking to achieve the award.
April is usually seen as the start of the season for most people, and this year the team at Aqueduct began the 2022 season with an opportunity for people to come along and meet the team. The event gave visitors the chance to talk to a number of staff members and ask questions about moorings, maintenance and sales.
In preparation, marina staff undertook a spring clean to plant up the flower beds, spruce up areas that needed a lick of paint and even renovate the Elsan point! As a result of the spring clean, the marina was ready to welcome visitors with drinks and canapés.
The event saw good numbers of people participate and take the opportunity to discuss the coming season with staff in an informal setting. Phil Langley (Marina and Operations Director) led the event and said, “The Staff site maintenance day was a great success, giving all the team a chance to do something constructive and different around the marina; we also mixed people up, so we were not working with our normal colleagues, leading to some great inter-team bonding.”
Phil went on to say, “The meet the team day also had a positive impact on our customers who enjoyed seeing office staff out in their overalls. A couple of days later, this was followed by our meet the managers afternoon and marina customers social, which also saw a good-sized crowd attend. As a result, we booked in some extra work as well as gaining a couple of new moorers. It also allowed our existing customers to catch up with their fellow Aqueduct boaters while enjoying a glass of wine”.
These are just the first of a number of events planned throughout the 2022 season at the Church Minshull marina. Details of these will be posted on the marina’s website and social media channels.
Aqueduct Marina Newsletter – Spring 2022
Aqueduct Marina are delighted to be able to publish our Spring 2022 newsletter.
We hope you enjoy reading our latest updates and news of the marina, here’s to a fantastic summer ahead!
Click on the document below to view your copy of the Spring 2022 Newsletter.
Aqueduct help Canal & River Trust get the “Games On”Aqueduct Marina are proud to have been asked by the waterways and wellbeing charity Canal & River Trust to build a new boat in time for the Commonwealth Games in July in Birmingham. The new boat, which will be called Aquarius II, will replace the original craft Aquarius. Despite this being the name of the mythical water carrier, this boat will be used for something somewhat less glamorous but nonetheless important: to collect debris from the waterways in and around the Birmingham area during and after the games.
The engineers at Aqueduct are no strangers to building or refurbishing some of the Trust’s fleet of workboats and it is this experience, coupled with the unique skillset of the workshop team, that helped the Cheshire marina be awarded the contract.
Robert Parton, MD of Aqueduct Marina, said: “We are proud to be supporting the Trust in their program of bringing their workboat fleet up to modern standards, this one is more interesting with its connection to the Commonwealth Games this summer.”
Mick Carrington, Plant & Equipment Manager at Canal & River Trust, said: “Aquarius II is going to be another essential workboat for our fleet. It will be a vast improvement on the old craft, providing improved performance from its battery-powered electric propulsion drive, and the welfare provisions have been updated to provide 240-volt electrics and toilet facilities. The timely arrival of the new craft will ensure, with the help of the Trust’s dedicated volunteers, that Birmingham’s canals are looking their best as the city welcomes thousands of visitors for the Commonwealth Games. We have worked with Aqueduct Marina before and have been impressed by their operational capabilities and skilled engineers, and we are delighted to entrust them with the build.”
Aquarius is 35ft long and has battery-powered propulsion making it very environmentally friendly and quiet in operation.
RIVERS Project underway again at Aqueduct MarinaThe COVID pandemic halted many projects over the past two years, and those that did continue did so at a much-reduced pace. Such was the case at Aqueduct Marina when work began on an important project funded by the European Regional Development Fund just before the first lockdown.
Working with partners across the EU, Aqueduct and the Canal and River Trust embarked on constructing a workboat testbed to allow various power systems to be trialled in real-world situations. The projects aims are to reduce or eliminate the pollutants from conventional internal combustion engines. The objective is to achieve this by using Oxy-fuel combustion technology for diesel engines and capturing and storing all CO2 emissions. It is also hoped that as a result, fuel consumption could be reduced by up to 15%. The project’s goal is to design, develop, and integrate dedicated carbon capture and storage systems into inland waterway vessels, both commercial and leisure.
However, despite the test boat’s construction getting underway some time ago, work had to stop when lockdowns were imposed; even after lifting restrictions, progress has been slow due to supply chain issues. However, work on the project, including vessel adaptations, has commenced with a tilt test recently taking place at Aqueduct Marina.
As well as undertaking the practicalities of the preparatory work, progress has also been made on the funding and timeline of the remainder of the RIVERS project. Funding is now all in place to complete this project by December 2022. With that in mind, the team at Aqueduct are on track to complete the work on the boat by April 2022. This will then allow enough time to fit all of the testing equipment. This equipment has arrived at the workshops in Cheshire in preparation for installation onto the testbed boat.
With the world’s attention focused on the COP26 conference over recent months, it is timely that this important work is underway once again. The hope is that it will help develop new modes of propulsion and the capture and storage of carbon and other damaging gasses. Hopefully, these developments will eventually see their way into mainstream use in the not too distant future.
*Featured in Towpath Talk
Aqueduct Marina Newsletter – Winter 2021Aqueduct Marina are delighted to be able to publish our Winter 2021 newsletter.
We hope you are still all well and keeping safe and have a brilliant Christmas with your family, friends, and boat of course!
Click on the document below to view your copy of the Winter 2021 Newsletter.
How green is your narrowboat?Use eco-friendly alternatives in the galley and bathroom. Avoid products containing chlorine, bleach and phosphates – they can be harmful to aquatic life.
Ensure your engine is maintained and serviced regularly to avoid unwanted leaks. Extract oil from your bilge before pumping out – install an inline bilge filter or tray.
Secure loose items such as bottles and cans to prevent them falling or blowing overboard.
Choose your site carefully, try to avoid areas where animals and birds may be resting, feeding, breeding or with young. Use designated tow-path bollards and rings.
Good use of the throttle and keeping a safe, reasonable distance from the banks will help to avoid unnecessary movement of water that can erode banks and disturb wildlife.
Aquatic invasive plant and animal species can cause damage to your boat and equipment, restrict navigation along waterways and harm our local environment. To help ensure we do not introduce or spread them around our UK waters, follow these steps:
Keep ropes, fenders and other equipment out of the water where possible to prevent invasive species attaching to them.
Check for any visible biofouling on your boat and equipment before leaving a mooring, remove and dispose of in a bin.
Clean your boat, bilge and equipment etc. as often as you can with fresh water to remove biofouling.
Dry all boating equipment and clothing for as long as possible. Species can survive several weeks in damp conditions.
For more helpful information on what you can do to contribute to the waterways visit: www.thegreenblue.org.uk
The Marina is open:
Mon - Sat: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sunday: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
The Cafe is open:
Mon - Fri: 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
Sat - Sun: 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
The Chandlery is open:
Mon - Sat: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sun: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
© 2024 Aqueduct Marina Church Minshull.
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