Let's hope for a better year

TODAY, Good Friday, is the start of Canal & River Trust's boating season.

So let's hope for a better one than last year, as it certainly was not a good one with its many stoppages, and some very long ones.

Weeks and months

Take for instance seven weeks for the Wigan Flight repair. Two months for the Oxford, 11 weeks for the damaged Dunham flood moorings, and still not started.

Three months for the stoppage on the Kennet & Avon—and worst of all—an estimated nine months for the repair to the Peak Forest.

What is so difficult to understand is that in the days of British Waterway, using its own people instead of contractors, times like these never happened. And neither did the all too often Monday to Friday repairs or multiples of them that the contractors obviously prefer.

The stoppages

So lets calculate the stoppages from April last year after the winter stoppages: (These do not include such as bridge strikes.)

April—12.  May—22.  June—27.  July—31.  August—29.  September—38.   October—38.  A total of 180 Canal & River Trust stated stoppages during its 2023 season of boating.