Manna from heaven

THE current draught restrictions affecting the more southern stretches of our waterways must seem like manna from heaven to the 'Guardians of OUR waterways', writes John Hall.

 

Now they have a 'God-given' excuse to cover up their lack of maintenance of both locks and pounds which as we all know accounts for the annual loss of a tremendous amount of this precious commodity.

Inauguration

The many thousands of pounds to be spent, (for that read wasted) by the new 'BW/IWA alliance' (that will soon dominate and control the actions of 'The trust' ), on celebrating the inauguration of the Canal & River Trust, would be far better spent, and more usefully on repairing some of the aforementioned leaks.

How far would this unnecessary expenditure go towards installing back-pumping at lock flights? After all, the restrictions being applied are on lock not pound usage, so we can continue cruising up and down the pounds so long as we don't pass through any locks!

It is yet again a clear example of an equally precious resource being frittered away, one can only wonder what Defra's opinion of this use of hard won funds will be.