Deteriorating Oxford Canal

LACK of money for maintenance, and local waterway managers being starved of cash means that the waterways are consequently deteriorating rapidly.

The Oxford Canal well represents the scale of the deterioration, with Roger Guiver pointing out to us the state of the badly neglected locks on the Claydon Flight, where 'patch it up best as you can' is the only method seemingly now used to keep it in working order, and this 'patch it up' policy can clearly be seen on his photograph of one of the Claydon Flight locks, Roger commenting:

Wait until it broke

"Perhaps, if British Waterways had responded to obvious deterioration of the lower balance beams on the top lock rather than wait until the beam broke (and had to be temporarily repaired with associated gate paddle removed), we the boaters, would not have been delayed by over two hours due to the slow, one paddle, operation of the lock.

"The replacement balance beams, surrounded by the 'orange virus' are slowly consumed by the surrounding grass."

Blamed on water shortage

Of course, the restrictions are still blamed on water shortage, yet his photograph below of Wormleighton Reservoir shows it very nearly full, but the restrictions still continue with boaters allowed just three hours to work the locks—from 10am to 1pm, obviously to safeguard the condition of the lock gates.

He is the second boater to tell us of the deterioration of the locks on the Oxford Canal, regarded as the second most popular with hirers, but obviously a struggle to keep open for normal hours.

Jimmy Lockwood complained that normal cruising hours are now impossible, not particularly because of hirers, but because of the state of the locks and particularly the leakage of badly fitting and broken gates (his photograph)  and broken paddles, explaining:

"In the four years since we were last down here on the Oxford, it has gone down hill rapidly, as I don't remember any problems then, but now there are many lock gates badly in need of replacement, and the leakage makes it take ages for the last inches for them to fill, and the condition of many paddles doesn't help either."

In his case he refers to the waterway as a whole, and not particularly any particular flight.