Asset and infrastructure failures

IT WOULD seem that no sooner does the Canal & River Trust (CaRT) open one part of its crumbling system than another failures occurs and an unscheduled stoppage takes place elsewhere, writes Allan Richards.

The news that another culvert has failed (Still another culvert failure) might lead one to the conclusion that it is just culverts but what about all those lock wall failures? It would seem that British Waterways' objective of clearing its massive backlog of maintenance by the end of 2012 has been replaced by a CaRT ‘fix on fail' policy.

Serial failures

As previously reported in narrowboatworld, CaRT had eight asset and infrastructure failures in its first nine months which led to parts of its system being closed for 375 days. It seems that this was not a statistical anomaly because these failures, which the Trustees have stated are a rare occurrence, are continuing to happen at an alarming rate.

With this in mind, CaRT has been asked to provide more information than is published in its first annual report regarding these failures.

Manifestly unreasonable?

Specifically, CaRT has been asked to provide the following information for each of the eight closures last year:

1. The place.

2. A short description of the failure.

3. The number of days of navigational closure.

4. The number of days of any towpath closure.

5. The total cost of repair (including any ancillary costs such as craning boats around the stoppage).

6. Any report that contains data as to the cause of the failure.

7. The latest inspection report together with any earlier reports referred to by the latest.

It has also been asked to provide similar information for this year to date with estimates where exact figures are not available.

Bearing in mind the claims of a new dawn for openness and transparency made by CaRT's new Chief Executive, Richard Parry, it is sad to have to report CaRT's response to this request is that it is 'manifestly unreasonable'.

Perhaps it meant 'manifestly embarrassing'.