THE Canal & River Trust (CaRT) has now released a new figure of the visitors to its waterways during 2015, that is impossible to believe.
Though local authorities tell of less people using the canals owing to the incidence of violence on the towpaths such as the Manchester 'Pusher' and Yorkshire 'Dipper' together accepted as responsible for 33 towpath deaths, the Trust would now have us believe there were 25,000,000—yes, that's millions—more than last year!
Over 527 visitors every mile every day!
It now tells us that from 300 millions in 2013, to 360 millions in 2014, the figure for its visitors to the towpaths last year was a staggering 385,000,000! This equates to exactly 527 visitors every day to every mile of its waterway! Just how stupid is that?
Put another way, this equates to every man, woman and child in the entire British Isles visiting its waterways six times a year! Believe it? No, and neither does any other sensible thinking person, it really is an insult to our intelligence.
Have you seen them?
Has any one of you boaters, wherever moored, seen over 500 people passing your boat during a day? Of course not. Our last cruise was on the Oxford Canal, that CaRT tells us is its most popular, but look at the pictures on this page taken of the towpaths, does it look as though over 500 visitors tread them every day?
During that cruise Victor Swift wrote that one day whilst on the North Oxford we only saw two visitors during one entire day.
Three times we have cruised the tidal Trent from Cromwell to Keadby, with the only town being Gainsborough, that does not even have a towpath, with the remainder of the river in the country, and we were lucky to see a handful of people during the 44 miles cruising, and certainly not the 23,188 CaRT calculates every day of the year. Last Tuesday we moored most of the day on the popular Sawley Cut on a bright fairly warm day, yet saw less than 20 visitors.
Where are they?
So just where are all these 385,000,000 visitors? One boater told us it included ducks and swans, but even that would be pushing it...
Though it may impress those it wants to impress, who take all statistics as being fact, to the more discerning it really makes CaRT seem idiotic, and showing that any of its statistics have to be taken with a very large pinch of salt.