How not to promote a canal

With all the fuss in Swindon over the possible reintroduction of a canal, Wiltshire’s county town provides a good example of how not get the best value from a canal.

Trowbridge has very little to offer any passing tourists, so you might think that they’d make the most of what little they have. You’d be wrong. Access to the Kennet & Avon Canal is down a poorly signposted — just one tiny sign in the whole town — footpath through the appropriately named Canal Road Industrial Estate, about a mile from the town centre. Hardly the most attractive route to what is probably Trowbridge’s best tourist asset, and that one sign is at the entrance to the industrial estate. An alternative point of access to the canal, Hilperton Marina on the outskirts of the town, barely gets a mention either.

All the other towns along the route of the Kennet & Avon Canal seem to have benefited from its presence; Trowbridge, though admittedly with less to gain, has apparently chosen to miss out.