Later with the building of the turnpike road through Hedon, and when the railway connecting Hull with Withernsea was opened, port traffic went into a decline.

A plan that was formulated in the 21st century, has proposed the revival of the haven as a pleasure waterway with a marina and a country park located at the southern end of Hedon.

[4] A large part of the former River Hedon east of the town, is now known as the Burstwick Drain, and is maintained by the South Holderness Internal Drainage Board.

[12] This ran alongside the eastern edge of town as The Fleet, and the Hedon Haven started when the watercourse turned a sharp 90° degrees to the west.

[13] The Fleet was navigable as far as the northern edge of town (though records exist of ships transiting to Burstwick),[14] and was expanded under a 1774 Act of Parliament.

[16] Between 1802 and 1807, the Keyingham Internal Drainage Board employed William Chapman to create a new cut in the watercourse, and it was diverted to approach Hedon from the east directly and ran alongside the very southern edge of the town.

The result of directing much of the water away from Hedon Haven was a lack of the scouring action on the riverbed, which then allowed silt to build up.

[31] As the fortunes of the town waned in favour of the other Humber ports, only St Augustine's Church was left, but its dockside structures were abandoned at the end of the 15th century.

[33] The Fore Bank, encircled the western side of the town, curling westwards then turning 180° to meet some of the streams at the northern end of Hedon.

[34] The straight edges of the Fore Bank indicate that it was dug by humans, however, some have theorised that it was purely defensive, as opposed to part of the port.

[46] Leland, who visited the town during the reign of Henry VIII, said "...it is evident to see that some places where the ships lay be overgrown with flags and reeds and the haven is sore decayed.

This caused the flow of the Humber Estuary to move further south, which did not clear the silt from the two havens as efficiently as it did before all the remedial works and land reclamation had taken place.

[51] By the 1760s, both the towns of Patrington and Hedon considered that their overland transport links needed improvement, and they pursued a turnpike to Hull, which they hoped would, in turn, ramp up trade in their respective havens.

[58] Around this time, the main basin at the south end of town between Sheriff Bridge and Thorn Road, was widened to allow for enhanced use.

[66] The last barges sailed up the haven in the 1960s with closure to watercraft in October 1969, when an order varying the 1774 Act of Parliament was made which prevented navigation upstream of the gates at Pollard Clough.

[68] Burstwick Drain was extended to meet the old route of Hedon Haven and provide an escape for water towards the Humber.

It is hoped the project will "breathe life into the area", add a further level of flood protection and become a marina for pleasure craft.

[78] This had several causal factors; heavy rain, the siltation of the riverbed and the sluice gates at the western end which held back the water.

The Pollard Clough sluice gates, located 0.93 miles (1.5 km) upstream of the Humber,[6] are there to prevent tidal water passing up the Hedon Haven/Burstwick Drain and flooding the valley.

[84] Due to the agricultural nature of the land that it drains, the surface run-off from fields has contributed to the river's poor ecological status.