After several weeks of unusually low flow along the Tennant Canal, we visited the Canalside at Aberdulais on 15 July 2021 to investigate what might be causing the canal’s sudden loss of water supply.

We immediately noticed that the large water pumps—installed after the dry, hot spell of 2018 to restore some flow to the Tennant Canal—had been removed from the site. Before those pumps were introduced, the canal had relied on the river weir, which partially collapsed in 2015 and left the water supply severely compromised.

We spoke to workers on site who confirmed that the Port Tennant Canal Company had ordered the removal of the pumps several weeks earlier. All maintenance—if any had been taking place—had also been halted due to a lack of funding. In October 2021, following determined public pressure, the owners did agree to restart some basic maintenance, but it was nowhere near enough to make any meaningful difference to the neglected waterway, its towpaths, or its listed buildings.

By this point it was obvious that the Tennant Canal had been effectively abandoned for weeks. In the middle of summer, with no functioning water source, no maintenance, and no intervention of any kind, the canal was simply left to its own fate.

June 2021 – The Tennant Canal at Jersey Marine (Amazon) left in a dreadful state despite the owners claiming that maintenance was in operation from Aberdulais to Port Tennant until 2021.

Jersey Marine Village – 4 August 2021.

Jersey Marine Village from May – July 2021.

The Scheduled Monument at Skewen Cuttings is now showing visible signs of failure; with no water pressure left in the canal, the structures that support its banks are beginning to collapse.

Fish were already being cut off by the extensive weed growth and the shrinking water levels, forced into the few remaining pockets of deeper water. Thousands of Roach, Rudd, Perch and Pike are now put at risk every year. Without a direct supply of fresh water, their survival depends entirely on the weather. Another year passes and the old canal endures yet another hot, dry spell in 2021 — but for how much longer.

Tennant Canal at Red Jacket – April 2021. This photograph proves that it isn’t only the summer months that threaten the canal’s water supply. By early spring the water level had already dropped to the point where long stretches were exposed, weed growth was accelerating, and the canal’s feeder sources were clearly failing. The image shows a waterway struggling long before the heat of July or August, highlighting how fragile the system had become: no managed inflow, no structural resilience, and no intervention from the owners. The problems visible here in April were simply a preview of the severe conditions that would follow later in the year.

Neath Canal – May 2021, west of Zoar’s Ark Pet Superstore, Neath. The Neath Canal was also in a dreadful state. Long stretches were choked with weed, the water level had fallen noticeably, and the surface was stagnant and discoloured. What should have been a clean, flowing historic waterway had instead become another example of neglect, mirroring the same pattern of abandonment seen along the Tennant Canal. The deterioration here showed that the problems were not isolated — both canals were suffering from the same lack of maintenance, the same absence of water management, and the same slow slide into ecological and structural decline.