Boat Licence Check

We receive many calls and emails from boaters to report craft that they believe are unlicensed on the Bridgewater Canal. In some cases the craft are actually licensed but not displaying.

This online boat checker has been created to enable anybody to check if a craft has a current Bridgewater Canal licence.

To check whether a boat is licensed, enter its index number, which for Bridgewater Canal registered craft is usually the letter ‘B’ followed by 4 numbers for example ‘B0001’.

If the boat is not licensed, you will then be given the opportunity to provide information about the craft including its location. Each completed form will be sent to our enforcement team and logged for investigation.

If the boat you are checking does not have a Bridgewater Canal boat licence number displayed please use the no licence number visible button, you will then be given the opportunity to provide information about the craft including location, description and size.

The enforcement team now regularly patrols the Canal using handheld computers and whenever we find an unlicensed boat we begin the enforcement process which can ultimately lead to a craft being removed from the Canal and sold or destroyed.