Victor: Another silly decision

Published: Sunday, 18 June 2017

THE instruction last week was to have a column without any reference to Canal & River Trust, but alas, dear Cart was so in the news with its many and varied decisions that I found it impossible—so no column!

Rubbish LLBut alas and alack, yet again, nothing has changed, in fact Cart seems to be piling on the agony with it now deciding that its litter bins are a bad idea, and there will be less litter without them.  Yes, yes, I know, strange thinking, but I think you will agree it is now what we come to expect.

Most of us know that it is contractors that empty the bins, so by not having 40% of them emptied it will save a tidy sum, that of course is needed to install all those launching ramps for canoeists.

Bed fellows

There is nothing so sure that in the old days before the Inland Waterways Association climbed into bed with Cart it would have raised merry hell at it getting rid of litter bins, and surely would have had something to say of the dangers of allowing canoeists to share tunnels with narrowboats, but I can find ner a word of condemnation.

Stratford signThe association had nothing to say about the waste of money on notices for ducks, the host of banners telling people where they were, or the other myriad of money wasting schemes.

The ever increasing lack of maintenance neither gets any censure from those at the Association, which leaves many to believe it is no longer the champion of the boater, something its every decreasing membership rather confirms.

Is it legal?

I was quite taken by the comments of one, Paul Robinson, who wonders if Cart spending money on 'irrelevant things' to the detriment of maintenance is in fact legal.

This is something that no one has brought up, but perhaps Paul has a point, when he refers to the objectives that should have been set down, and if Cart is acting outside these objectives, that as a charity should only do what it was set up to do.

Mind you, attempting to get hold of its Memorandum & Articles of Association may prove something of a problem.

Wider than expected

Seeing all those continuous moorers on the Macclesfield Canal I thought they were something of a 'one off' gathering together as enforcement was, now what word shall I use?—how about 'arranged', especially as another boaters have confirmed the situation.

But no, we are getting many reports of instances where there are 'batches' of such boats moored away from official moorings for weeks on end all over the system, who move a few yards every now and again. It is becoming more and more obviously that there is a problem, and a big one at that.

Wits End movedMoved 80 yards

The boat Wit's End that was moored on the Sawley Flood Lock moorings for eight weeks has at last moved—80 yards to the other side of the lock moorings, and will no doubt be there another eight weeks on its continuous cruiser licence.

This boat was causing the official moorers on Sawley Cut to complain that they were paying quite a hefty fee yet Wit's End was on the same moorings with the same facilities for free.

Here's a picture of it at its new 'permanent' moorings. Nothing will be done about it of course.

Still there

The other two with the great noisy generator that came back to their usual position on the 48 hours moorings opposite the water tap have now been there three weeks, but are expected to shortly move a mile down to their other moorings on the wall at Trent Lock, where they will stay about a week before being back yet again on Sawley Cut.

The two 30May

It is obvious that both boats have a crew member who works locally with Sawley Cut handy for a bus. Trent Lock isn't so handy, which is why the two don't stay at Trent Lock too long.

It is all certainly encouraging more and more boaters to stop paying out to moor either bankside or in marinas and pick a handy towpath mooring, knowing full well that enforcement is now virtually non-existent.

So are you going to do anything about them Mr Griffin?

Deserted

It has been a long time since we had a day above Derwent Mouth on the Trent & Mersey, so last Tuesday we took a short cruise up river to find a spot amongst the moored boats (yes you have guessed what they are!)

Derwent Mouth towpathBut we were very much taken by the lack of people, as in the past the walk down from Shardlow had always been rather popular with dog walkers, and as some of you may remember last Tuesday was a warm sunny day.

We only saw two dog walkers all day, and not a single dog-less walker.  So Mr. Dodwell, it rather makes a mess of your calculation of 440,000,000 visits that boils down to 630 visits to every mile of waterway every day.  For it is exactly a mile from Shardlow to Derwent Mouth Lock. So where are those missing 628 today? 

Or every day, come to that, for does anybody out there believe there will be many more any day at Derwent Mouth? The condition of the towpath in the picture certainly doesn't verify it!

Victor Swift