Calls to limit boat traffic to protect wildlife on restored Welsh canal

Conservationists say boats with propellers could destroy floating water-plantain on Montgomery canal

Conservationists are calling for only horse-drawn barges to journey along a section of the Montgomery canal when it is reopened, to protect rare aquatic plants and wildlife on the rewilded waterway.

The naturalist and broadcaster Iolo Williams has joined the campaign to protect floating water-plantain as well as dragonflies, grass snakes, kingfishers and otters on the canal between Arddlin and Llanymynech, which has been unnavigable to canal boats for decades but is to be restored with £14m from the government’s levelling up fund.