IWA Legacy Pack

A lasting legacy for the inland waterways

Share your love of the waterways with generations to come.

Protecting and restoring inland waterways since 1946.

As a charity, the Inland Waterways Association depends on legacies and donations to continue our vital work. Gifts from Wills make up to a quarter of our annual income. With membership covering just a third of our charitable costs, we depend on the generosity of people who remember us in their Wills.

Gifts in Wills help our teams of volunteers to campaign for the places that matter to you.

Restoring Waterways

We are helping to bring 700 miles of abandoned waterways back to life.

Waterways Heritage

We work to safeguard the dramatic industrial architecture and heritage structures that make our waterways so unique.

Protecting Rural Spaces

We campaign to protect and improve the nation’s 4,700 miles of navigable canals and rivers.

The inland waterways association

You can make a difference. Support the work of IWA volunteers with a gift in your Will.

Wood End Lock Cottage, Trent & Mersey Canal © Robert Pritchard

Any gift we receive, no matter how large or small, makes a valuable contribution to our ongoing work to protect these special places.

Protecting special places

Our campaigning ensured that the beautiful and peaceful countryside around Wood End Lock near Fradley Junction would not be affected by High Speed 2, a campaign funded by membership subscriptions, donations and generous legacy contributions.

What can a gift in your Will do?

You can see the impact of gifts left to IWA in Wills everywhere you look when you visit canals and rivers across England, Wales and Scotland.

open up miles of waterways

Waterway restoration projects across the country were given a boost thanks to a legacy from waterway expert and engineer, Tony Harrison, which will open up to six miles of derelict waterway to navigation.

The restoration of two locks on the Pocklington Canal received £106,400 from the legacy and returned two miles of the waterway to navigation for the first time in nearly a century. A lock on the River Stour has been rebuilt with the help of an £8,600 award, opening up 1.75 miles of navigable

river to boats. £15,000 allowed engineering works to be carried out on the Cromford Canal to help regulate water levels and enable a trip boat to raise funds for further restoration.

Griff Rhys Jones, reopening of the River Stour, Flatford lock © Robert Pritchard

engage & inspire local communities

Communities have been involved with innovative projects along the Northampton Arm of the Grand Union Canal, thanks to a £125,610 legacy left by John James Faulkner.

More than six projects have been made possible by this legacy, including a new canal inspired mural depicting ‘Nature Through the Seasons’ underneath the M1 motorway bridge. The mural was created with the help of pupils from Rothersthorpe Primary School and assisted by members of Blisworth Art Group.

The legacy also funded a mosaic trail, which now links the 17 locks along the five mile length of the Canal. Each mosaic pictures a letter and together they make a word, crafted by local school children and installed by volunteers.

One of the mosaics installed along the Northampton Arm

unlock investment

This major restoration project included rebuilding the three Hanbury Locks, which was supported by IWA’s Waterway Recovery Group. His legacy helped fund the construction work, towpath improvements and the enormous lock gates. It also helped unlock a £10m completion package for the rest of the stretch. The reopening of the waterway was the culmination of over 30 years’ work by IWA to promote the restoration of the Droitwich Canals.

after

The Droitwich Junction Canal was reopened in 2011, thanks in part to a £100,000 legacy left by the late Neil Pitts.

North staircase locks, Droitwich Canal © Chris Handscombe

Head of Lock 4, Droitwich Canal 3rd November 1973 © I Bruce

Remember IWA in your Will...

Leaving a gift in your Will can be straightforward and shouldn’t be costly to achieve. A conversation with your solicitor about adding ‘The Inland Waterways Association’ to an existing or new Will is all you need to do to get it underway. It may be helpful if you provide them with our registered charity number (212342) as it can make it easier for the gift to find its way to us.

Arrange your gift in many ways:

Pecuniary gift

A specified sum of money. To ensure that it keeps its value over the years, you can ask your solicitor to make it index-linked.

Specific gift

An object, like a painting, a house or a piece of jewellery.

Residuary gift

Made from whatever is left over once gifts of money and items have been distributed. You can gift the whole or a share of your estate to a charity like IWA.

Did you know?

Leaving a gift to a charity like the Inland Waterways Association could have tax advantages too.

For more information or ideas about what you might like your lasting legacy to achieve, please contact our Fundraising Officer:

01494 783 453

legacy@waterways.org.uk