The Fradley mystery

THERE has been much speculation on the towpath as to why the finger pontoons, adjacent to the water point below Junction Lock at Fradley Junction, have been removed, writes Ralph Freeman.

Recently Land & Water have installed a smart 'linear' pontoon in their place, but the question is why?

Whose shop?

The shop near the water point was closed, but has now re-opened after a re-vamp.

The confusing thing is it has the name of Fradley Marine on the door, and both Fradley Marine and CaRT on the windows! So exactly whose shop is it or perhaps more to the point, who is paying the lease?

Linked

The two items are linked if my sources are correct. The story goes like this. Fradley Marine, which morphed out of the defunct Ownerships, was going to run the ex-shop by the water point and use it as the office for the shared ownership business which was based at Fradley. The new pontoon would then have been most useful on 'changeover' days and reduced congestion in the busy junction pound.

However, most (all?) of those ex Ownership boats are now based elsewhere, so maybe Fradley Marine pulled out of the deal given the depressed state of business at Fradley?

Answers please

So if anyone knows what is really going on and who paid for all these modifications, or has any knowledge of the current situation, please get in touch with the editor of narrowboatworld and satisfy many people's curiosity!