Educational Barge

The project aim is to continue with renovation, remodelling and updating an old canal boat to use as a Community Boat based at Goytre Wharf, from where the boat will run regular trips for families and school parties, together with special trips for disabled and disadvantaged groups. As a community resource, any surplus income, over-and-above running costs being reinvested into education, canal maintenance and restoration.

The boat is environmentally sustainable, being electrically driven, and is equipped with a wheelchair lift and disabled toilet. The boat will be the only trip boat operating on the Brecon Monmouthshire Canal managed by and operating for the benefit of the community. 

The boat is eco-friendly being electrically driven and double ended, with a propeller and tiller at both bow and stern; this unique feature allows the saving of valuable electric power when changing direction as “winding” is not needed. The intended provision of on-board information via WiFi served by a dedicated graphically rich history and ecological dataset.

Culture – Whilst the focus of this project is on canal there are a number of options for assisting the development of access (tourism and use of the café and other boat activities– to engage in economic development and greater footfall to the area).

Goytre Wharf has the potential for B2B support. By encouraging the Community Boat, Café, Red Line Boat Hire and Cycle Hire to work together to help support each other it could support the increase visitor numbers at the site working with the café to provide on-board catering of required by groups can increase economic growth of the businesses at the wharf.

Potentially, by using  joint marketing through a website and social media together it could foster a joint approach to enhancing the visitor experience by use of new technology.