Boat users are witnessing one of the biggest marina developments along the Leeds-Liverpool canal in the history of the waterway.

Snaygill Boats owners Troy and Jo Dortona are just a few weeks away from opening a new wide-beam dry-dock.

Clad in larch wood, the building, at Snaygill, near Skipton, will also blend into the countryside and the heritage site.

The development has seen the emergence of a huge earthwork pile, which can be seen from the A650.

The thousands of tons of earth, removed from the canalside to make room for the 70ft by 21ft dock, is being given away to enhance local allotments.

Mr Dortona said: “This is a huge and ambitious undertaking for us but we believe we’re responding to a growth in the popularity of wide-beamed boats.

“More and more people are buying them to live in on the canal. I’d say they have increased two fold on the canal in recent years. It’s much cheaper than living traditionally in a house.”

Constructing a wide-beam dock was an appropriate development because the canal – one of the widest in the country – was originally built to take 14ft 6ins boats.

“Most canals in the country are for narrow boats which are 6ft 6ins wide. This canal is unusual.

“The new dock will also enable us to work on our own fleet of boats while accommodating other people’s in the narrowboat dry dock we already have on the site,” he said.

The project has meant breaking through part of the canal bank and the work is expected to be completed within the next eights weeks.