OXFORD Canal’s towpath is plagued by graffiti and collapsing banks, boaters have warned.

Waterways historian Mark Davies, whose boat is moored near the Isis Lock, said daubings kept re-emerging on bridges and walls, despite recent cleaning by volunteers.

And he told actors Timothy West and Prunella Scales that he felt “almost ashamed” to welcome people to the lock during an episode of their Channel 4 programme Great Canal Journeys aired earlier this month.

It came as Canal & River Trust bosses warned the problem was a “daily battle”.

But there are wider concerns among boaters that sections of the city’s historic towpath in North Oxford are being left to decay.


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Mr Davies told the Oxford Mail: “Graffiti is the great problem along the towpath. Local people spent two days cleaning it off at the Isis Lock, but now it is back again.”

During the most recent episode of Great Canal Journeys, actor Mr West said the state of the Oxford Canal was a “far cry” from when he and his wife visited 40 years ago.

He branded the channel between the Thames and Castle Mill Stream “graffiti tunnel” and said the canal was in a “state of dereliction”.

During a sequence in which the couple interviewed author Philip Pullman, their narrowboat ran aground in a shallow area of the canal between Jericho and Wolvercote.

Jon Ody, an engineer at boat repair firm Green Boat Services, said many sections of the towpath were in need of urgent attention.

He said that a “disproportionate” amount of money had been spent on the area near Jericho, where a £158,000 resurfacing of the path has taken place in the last month.

Mr Ody said: “It is a very short stretch of towpath but has had a massive amount of investment.

“Up in Wolvercote the whole bank is falling apart in places. It needs repairing, because it is in decline.

“There has been talk of dredging for years, but there are still the same problems of overgrowth and branches and leaves which are falling into the canal, so it gets shallower and narrower”

Neil Owen of the Canal & River Trust said: “It is disappointing and makes me feel quite angry that some people think it’s acceptable to vandalise our 200-year-old canals.

“The waterways are a wonderful place to visit but we face a daily battle tackling graffiti and staying on top of the problem.

“What we need is for people not to spray in the first place, or join our graffiti-fighting army and help us to fight back.”

And he pledged a full review of mooring sites near Wolvercote. He added: “We acknowledge there is a problem with erosion in some places which has caused the edge of the towpath to wash away.

“We are monitoring the situation to make sure it doesn’t get worse and will work out what repairs are needed.”