TO ME, it has got to the point that any statistics given out by the Canal & River Trust have to be taken with a pinch of salt, as one of your people stated, writes Terry Palmer.
Any one giving even the slightest thought to its statistics can see they are widely off the mark, and greatly exaggerated, and not only those unbelievable visitor numbers either, but the lack of winter maintenance that it tells us it does.
Stenson Lock
And all this maintenance it has supposed to have done, yet here we have the busy Stenson Lock closed for three days at the start of the boating season because it is leaking. It has been leaking for years, as everybody who uses it knows, yet it was not attended to in any of the the winter maintenance periods.
As well as me reporting it, and I'm fairly sure more others have done, and last season very often the Trust had volunteer lock keepers at the lock, who surely must have also reported it. But no, let's wait until it get too worse to use.
'Wait until it breaks'
Another of your people stated that 'wait until it breaks then mend it' or some such phrase, was the dictum of the Trust these days, and Stenson Lock well proved it. I just wonder, as I'm sure do many more, that will they be able to complete their cruises this year or be stuck somewhere miles from their moorings?
And what about not only the boaters but hirers from the local marinas who find their holiday plans now in a mess?