Constant attention to keep the system operating

IN THE past I have taken umbrage at Victor, but certainly not this time, writes T Lang.

Home to roost

His comments on CaRT's chickens coming home to roost were dead on the mark, as you just cannot sit back and ignore a 200 odd years waterways system, that has obviously reached the end of its life and needs constant attention to keep it operating.

It's method of waiting until it breaks then attending to it obviously means a big job taking weeks, as Keith often reports, and also obviously means bugger the boater who is stuck for those weeks or even months on end.

Retained the lengthmen

Yet if it had retained those most important people, the lengthmen, whose job it was to patrol their patch of the waterways and report anything amiss, and most importantly get it quickly attended to before it became a big job, all those many stoppages, (and this month I note three on the 11th and another three on the 13th and not forgetting the 38 in September) would never have occurred.

It is now patently clear that the colossal cost of contractors who 'attempt' to undertake the repairs, must far outweigh the costs of keeping those so important lengthmen.