In July 1958, the Bowes Committee published their "Inquiry into Inland Waterways", which recommended that waterways should be classed as A, B or C, where class A and B would be retained for navigation, but class C would not. The Pocklington Canal was in class C, and the newly formed Inland Waterways Protection Society carried out a survey of it in 1959, so that they had evidence of its condition. A government White Paper followed the Bowes Report in February 1959, which recommended that an Inland Waterways Redevelopment Advisory Committee should assist schemes to regenerate canals which were no longer commercially viable. The evidence collected by the Protection Society was presented to the Redevelopment Advisory Committee in June 1959, when the Committee were examining a proposal to close the canal and fill it with sludge from a water treatment plant.