By this stage, the main line of the canal between Lenton and Langley Mill had been abandoned, although the stretch through Nottingham remains in use as part of the Trent navigation.

Nottingham City Council planning guidance[6] and best practice from the Environment Agency[7] is now to remove culverts, which are expensive to maintain and can cause flooding when they are blocked or damaged.

A new Tesco development in Bulwell town centre, which received planning permission in 2008, will remove the culvert under the former Kwik Save supermarket.

And the eastern part of the University of Nottingham's Jubilee Campus opens up a section of the river's urban route through Lenton, a small lake having been created to the rear of the Ingenuity Centre, adjacent to the concrete channel (through which the Leen still flows) that was originally built to prevent the flooding of the now-demolished Raleigh cycle factory.

The Leen is sometimes mistakenly believed to pass through the main part of the Jubilee Campus, but the lake and other water features in that area are artificial in nature.