Will the opportunity be missed?

THERE are questions that really need answers from British Waterways about the imminent closure of 60 miles of the Leeds and Liverpool canal but everyone knows there won't be any answers, writes Lesley Carter.

While the locks are not working and the stopper boards are in, are British Waterways going to do urgent repairs? This is a golden opportunity to repair some of the badly maintained locks so that when, and if, they reopen this year there will be no vast loss of water which seems to have created the present situation.

As usual BW will probably sit around watching the fish, and waiting for someone to fall off the towpath into the canal instead of trying to rectify this self inflicted problem.

What is going to happen to the lock keepers temporary or permanent? Do they get laid off or relocated. Lock keepers are the hands-on part of the canal but are they going to be made to pay for their employers' incompetence?

BW say that there is going to have to be a deluge of rain to replenish our flagging supplies. There would have to be rain of biblical proportions to fill the reservoirs, but first stop the water running out through badly maintained locks faster than the great almighty can put it in. Leakages on locks don't stop when the restrictions say so, they still leak constantly—they even operate a night shift.

Restrictions were imposed on the canal at Spring Bank Holiday in May, so they were aware that there was a potential a problem then, and the locks had only been open a month. They possibly already know what would happen but still carried on with their plans to build new moorings in Liverpool and other hare-brained ideas at a cost that could have been put into the repair budget.

This situation must be dumped entirely at British Waterways door and they should be held totally responsible for the incompetence that they display in every aspect of their operations.

[The photographs are of the leaking gates on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, from boaters who have uploaded them into the State of the Waterways category in the Gallery.]