IF YOU wanted to measure the worth of your urban water view, you would be wrong if you smugly counted the fish, birds and flowery shrubs. These might be a big improvement on the submerged bikes and tangled supermarket bags of old, but British Waterways has much better advice: follow the boats.

British Waterways has transformed canals from being an element of urban blight to an amenity that adds as much as 25 per cent to the value of nearby properties. Its £100 million annual budget pays for work on its 2,200 miles of waterside real estate, from reopening abandoned routes to restoring original features. Robin Evans, chief executive of British Waterways, says: “Once we dug out the trolleys, lit the bridges and repaired the towpaths, people wanted to be by canals again. There is no question they have become the place of preference to live.”

But the maintainers of our waterways believe that canals need a more sustainable future than as an outdoor museum. Only boats can bring them colourfully alive, ensure their economic future and — crucially — prove alluring to visitors. Boats are indeed the barometer of a true regeneration.

Yet many developers seem to fear that canals will return to their former insanitary state; waterside access is provided reluctantly for only a few residents. The revival of towpaths, with public right of way, and moorings for boats (features often lost in the years of neglect) are still a dream. Mark Ryder, chairman of British Waterways’ development venture, ISIS Waterside Regeneration, believes that today’s slick developments risk being tomorrow’s slums unless they are integrated into the environment.

British Waterways and ISIS are leading by example to prove that development that is good for canals is also good for communities — and financial backers. ISIS has had great success with family-friendly apartments at Granary Wharf, Leeds, and Islington Wharf in Manchester. Julian D’Arcy, a partner with the agent Knight Frank, said these are outstanding for the high quality of both public and private areas.

ISIS is now ready to start transforming — planning permission permitting — a 28-acre site, at Icknield Port Loop, a mile west of Birmingham city centre. An island formed by the meeting of the old and main lines of the Birmingham Canal, tucked below the green space of Edgbaston reservoir, the site is a picture of rusty decay. The plan is to replace all this with a community — or virtual suburb — of 5,000 family-friendly houses and flats, plus offices, hotels and shops. Heritage features, such as Thomas Telford’s elegant iron bridges, will adorn public spaces. A water taxi service, to keep traffic off busy Icknield Port Road, is planned. There will be pleasing water vistas and public access. The development will bring families back to the inner city and help to extend Birmingham’s heart beyond the highly successful Brindleyplace, only ten minutes’ walk away.

Commercial revival and sustainability — both social and environmental — are the key concepts. Ryder says: “There is a lot written about families not liking the city, but you need to have the right product and the amenities they need: the shops, the schools, parks and healthcare centres. We are raising the bar for developers.” Few cities have such an acute need for family homes as Birmingham, where households are expected to increase by 21 per cent to 500,000 by 2026. Households in the West Midlands are larger on average than those in Britain’s other regions, yet houses account for only 9.7 per cent of new properties, forcing families out and leaving the inner city to young renters or empty-nesters.

With ISIS an effective custodian of development sites (and fundraiser for British Waterways, which gets 50 per cent of its profits), British Waterways is shifting its focus to help in building new canals, including the 1,000-metre extension of the Liverpool and Leeds canal to Albert Dock, a century after the link was cut by construction of the Three Graces. The £17 million project is due to be finished for Liverpool’s capital of culture year in 2008. Two centuries after it first erupted, canal mania is here again. www.britishwaterways.co.uk www.isis.gb.com

FACTBOX

With 170 acres of land in development across seven cities, ISIS has well-advanced plans to created waterside communities from scratch across the country. Large-scale sites will include:

Tottenham Hale, North London: A community of 400 homes and 45,000 sq ft of commercial space on an island site near the Tube, railway and bus interchange, with improved access to the River Lee.

Brentford, West London: Almost 1,000 properties, a quarter of them affordable homes, plus community facilities including a bus station, on 11½ acres adjacent to the Grand Union Canal and River Brent.

Nottingham: Leisure facilities, office spaces and 2,000 family houses, terraces and apartments by the River Trent, ten minutes’ walk from the city centre.

Glasgow: 450,000 sq ft of residential and 22,000 sq ft of commercial space in five buildings at Speirs Locks, in the Port Dundas area, and a new waterside community on a large site where the River Kelvin meets the Forth and Clyde Canal.

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