The Bugsworth Basin Heritage Trust (BBHT), formerly known as the Inland Waterways Protection Society (IWPS), is a British organisation founded in 1958 to work for the restoration of the canal system.

Group 3 canals, which covered all the rest, should be considered for disposal to organisations other than the British Transport Commission or closed.

The group included 771 miles (1,241 km) of canal, but about one third of them were already closed, having been abandoned as a result of the LMS General Powers Act of 1945.

[2] It was initially a breakaway movement from the Inland Waterways Association (IWA), which at the time was undergoing radical reorganisation to become a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee.

She was accused by Robert Aickman, the chairman of the IWA, of being the founder of the new society, and although she rejected the idea, she did admit that it would probably not have been formed without her.

[4] In May 1959 the IWPS organised a protest cruise on the Chesterfield Canal, to try to convince the authorities that it should be retained, and in the following month presented their first report to the IWRAC.

It gave detailed arguments for the restoration of the Pocklington Canal, when the Advisory Committee were considering whether it should be filled in and abandoned.

As the threats to the network persisted, the initial campaigning by the IWPS was in many cases assisted by local societies representing individual waterways.

A White Paper called British Waterways: Recreation and Amenity was presented to Parliament in September 1967.

The Minister for Transport, Barbara Castle, announced that the Government now realised that pleasure cruising was not a pastime confined to the rich, that the British Waterways Board would have a duty to ensure that the canals were suitable for powered pleasure boats, and that 1,400 miles (2,300 km) of the network would be retained.

[13] On 14 September 1968, the IWPS received permission from British Waterways to commence restoration of Bugsworth Basin.

Following an extensive geological survey of the ground, which included the drilling of core sample for analysis, DewPitchmastic commenced work on sealing the canal in December 2003.

In addition to this work, GallifordTry, the omnibus contractor for British Waterways, cleared and then sealed part of the Entrance Canal, to make it watertight, as it was also leaking.