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The Act of Parliament which brought into being the navigation scheme for the rivers Aire and Calder was the first of its kind, and was granted in 1699. By 1704, the Aire was navigable throughout from Airmyn, just above the mouth of the Aire, to Leeds and Wakefield. The Aire and Calder became a great success, making huge profits and its owners very wealthy, although little of those profits were to be reinvested in the scheme and the navigation began to fall into disrepair. However, the success of the scheme soon had merchants all over the country promoting their own river navigations and it was to combat the threat posed by the proposed Leeds and Liverpool canal that improvements were begun in the 1760s. This included the building of a new canal to Selby from the River Aire at Haddlesey, which was opened in 1778.
The Aire and Calder navigation Company had been in dispute with Knottingley for several years, due to the use of water by the mill which led to low water levels in the navigation. Many plans were put forward in an attempt to solve these ongoing disputes between the navigation and Knottingley Mills, none of which were put into practice with any degree of success. Eventually in 1772, the navigation purchased outright Knottingley Mills and a new weir was constructed.