The restoration of the Montgomery Canal will have an "enormous impact" on the economy of Powys, a UK Government minister has said.

Rebecca Pow, the Minister for Nature Recovery and the Domestic Environment, visited Welshpool Canal to comment on the ongoing restoration of Montgomery Canal.

Ms Pow, Parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, visited The Wharf Powysland Museum and embarked on a short canal boat ride, along with Montgomeryshire MP Craig Williams, on February 11.

Their visit was part of what was described as “a UK wide fact finding mission”, where they took the time to meet with various local groups and discuss the developments being carried out on the canal.

“It will have an enormous impact in terms of the economy and in terms of job created," she said.

“It should create tourism opportunities and hospitality opportunities for the area.

“We want rural areas to thrive, we don’t want them to be poorer than the rest of the country, it’s why projects like this are so important because what it will do is spread the economic improvements right across the country.”

The visit also took in a trip to Llyn Clywedog in Llanidloes, where Ms Pow met with officials to discuss flooding.

Ms Pow said: “It’s not a simple or straightforward decision, it’s actually very complex. We also have to bear in mind that the correct flow down the whole of the catchment has to be maintained.

“If you lower the water, you risk the overall water supply. So it’s all about balance.”

“Flood management requires a lot of assessment and a lot of calculations, which we are doing in another part of the country and have been given a significant amount of funding for something called the River Severn Partnership, which 47 MPs have signed.

“One of the projects that is part of the River Severn partnership is at the Guilsfield brook catchment that is testing some of these concepts, looking at landscape scale intervention which puts in natural flood management to see if we can help flood risk that way, as well as hard barriers."

Craig Williams, MP for Montgomeryshire, commented on the importance of the minister’s visit, saying: “This is great stuff, the big thing about this visit is remembering that the UK government is there to represent all of the UK.

“We’ve got a minister here representing the UK government, whereas normally we might think of matter like this as only being something for the Welsh Government to deal with. But that’s not the case here and that’s what we need to wake up to.”