ANDERSEN Boats’ latest addition to the Middlewich canals was officially opened last week and staff from the business say it’s time to encourage more tourism into the town.

Middlewich MP Fiona Bruce and Mayor and Mayoress of Middlewich Paul and Sonya Edwards opened Andersen Boats’ new narrowboat on Saturday, March 7.

With the business now expanding and growing in success, Dave Hough from Andersen Boats, says the canals in Middlewich need to be used to bring tourism into the town.

Dave said: “They came along to open the boat and we spoke about how we as a company and the council can begin to benefit from each other. 

“The aim is to help tourism in the town. We have lots of foreign travellers coming and using us for boating holidays and lots of domestic travellers as well and we can start to promote the events we have here like the artisan market and the FAB Festival to our customers.

“We need to help when events are taking place. It’s about sign posting at the moment.”

Andersen Boats won the ‘Best in Britain’ and ‘Best on the Canals’ awards at the Hoseasons annual Gala Awards evening in November, standing out from 62 of Britain's best boatyards.

Middlewich Mayor Cllr Paul Edwards is pleased to see the success of the business and says it can only help encourage more people to use the canals. 

Paul Edwards said: “It’s good to see businesses flourishing and looking to expand in Middlewich and we want to support that.

“The canals are really important to Middlewich and since we put the tow paths in more and more people are using them but there’s always more we can do.”