The Shrewsbury and Newport Canals Trust has welcomed its latest corporate member as it seeks to expand on support from the business community.
Newport-based Robert Nicholas Financial Advisers has pledged its backing to the Trust, which is working to re-open the canals and reconnect them to the wider waterways network.
Studies have shown that restored canals bring wide-ranging social and economic benefits to an area, creating businesses and jobs, expanding tourism, promoting healthy living, supporting hobbies such as angling and boating and much more.
The Shrewsbury and Newport Canals Trust has a long-term vision of restoring the link from Norbury Junction, in Staffordshire, through Newport and Telford to Shrewsbury, where the former canal passed the historic Flaxmill Maltings and terminated at the Buttermarket. It’s current focus is on bringing Thomas Telford’s Wappenshall Wharf, in Telford, back into use.
SNCT chairman, Bernie Jones, said: “We have a broad and committed membership of individuals, but having the business community as part of what we are trying to do is hugely important too. It sends a signal that the wider community recognises the benefits to the county of restoring the waterways, which can essentially become a leisure corridor through our beautiful countryside.
“We can’t thank the team at Robert Nicholas Financial Advisers enough for their belief in the Trust and its work. They have signed up as full corporate members on an ongoing basis but they have been good enough to make a generous donation as well and for that everyone at the Trust is immensely grateful. We would encourage other businesses to follow their lead because it will benefit all of us to bring these wonderful waterways back into use.”
Steve Graves, one of the directors at Robert Nicholas Financial Advisors, which has its offices on Newport High Street, said: “The canal is one of the key historic features of Newport. We think the idea of it being restored and connecting us to Staffordshire and on then to Telford and Shrewsbury as a green corridor is hugely exciting and would be a boon to the vitality of Newport and a whole swathe of Shropshire. I hope more businesses will consider becoming members. It’s not at all costly, but it is symbolically vital to the success of the project.”
More information on the SNCT and its work can be found at www.scnt.co.uk, along with membership forms
