in 1882 the chairman of Portadown Town Commissioners suggested that Alexander Nimmo's scheme should be revived. The Upper Bann would be made much deeper near the lough, so that its flow could be reversed, and the amount of water entering the lough reduced correspondingly. The proposal was no better received than when Nimmo had originally made it. Both the Monck Commission, which sat in the early 1880s, and an enquiry into the Board of Works held in 1887, suggested that for the benefit of flood relief, the navigation should be abandoned, and that the three Trusts were counter-productive. No action was taken, and when the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Sir Alexander Binnie, was asked for his advice in 1906, he came to a similar conclusion. He suggested that a canalised river, which in winter had a flow of between was never going to succeed. Again his advice was ignored, as the navigation works were still relatively new. The counties continued to fund the annual deficit. A proposal to build a hydro-electric scheme across the Lower Bann in 1925 came to nothing, and four years later, the Lough Neagh Drainage Trust and the Lower Bann Navigation Trust were disbanded, with the Ministry of Finance assuming responsibility for the river. The counties contributing to the Upper Bann Navigation Trust appealed for that to be disbanded too, but the appeal was refused and they had to continue funding it. Some improvements to weirs were made by the Ministry of Finance, and there was some traffic, consisting mostly of sand dredged from Lough Neagh and used by brickworks. Finally, in 1954, responsibility for the Upper Bann was transferred to the Ministry of Commerce, the Trust was disbanded, and the navigation was abandoned. The Lower Bann has seen an increase in use by pleasure craft, and now supports four marinas, two at Coleraine, one at Drumaheglis and one at Portglenone. See also List of rivers of Northern Ireland Rivers of Ireland Bibliography References External links Discover Northern Ireland - Upper Bann Discover Northern Ireland - Lower Bann Waterways Ireland - Lower Bann information page. Rivers Agency website Rivers of County Down Rivers of County Armagh Rivers of County Antrim Rivers of County Londonderry