SO THE breach on the Macclesfield lasted just a week before it started to leak, it being repaired by Canal & River Trust's chosen contractor, Kier, a firm I am only too well aware of.
For Kier was responsible for us having to struggle with others through its building of the new £205 millions 'smart motorway' between junctions 28 and 29 on the M1 we travelled every week to get to our moorings—that was exactly one year and three months late in opening, causing unimaginable congestion on what is the main motorway artery of the country. So, like I should imagine those millions who also struggled through the miles of restrictions, for the years it took to complete, I don't have much of an opinion of Kier.
It's latest acquisition is a £24 millions contract as part of Bond City in Dover, comprising of a six screens cinema, hotel, restaurants, and shops. Bettering this it has landed a £1 billion contract to help build 10,000 homes throughout the country.
Which leaves me to ask—which of its many sectors of workers does it use to repair our canals? When it repairs a 'leak' and it leaks again a few days later, not very good ones I think you will all agree.
Making up the number
And mentioning motorways, reader Paul Robinson, concerned at the vast number of visitors the Trust would have us believe visits its waterways, suggests that as he crosses the M1 over the Trent twice a day, like lots of other drivers, all could be counted...
Now that just might make the number up to that astronomic 360,000,000, or perhaps, as it had leaped to 360,000,000 from 300,000,000 at the last count, it could well be 400,000,000 now!
Sunken boats
What do you make of all these sunken boats we are getting these days? Are they a way of getting rid?
I notice they are all rather clapped-out, which means they cannot be sold, but being on Cart waters have to be licenced and what have you, so perhaps getting rid of all their identification, loosening the stern tube to allow water in and a gentle push, and that is it.
Certainly saves the considerable expense of having to remove it from Cart's waters and disposing of it.
No licence to show
At the moment our boat has no current licence to show, for though our boat has a paid for licence to the end of July, we only received one showing to the end of June.
Notwithstanding numerous emails and telephone calls, the proper licence showing to the end of July never arrived. So we are now seen as licence-less and wide open to be pounced upon by Enforcement Manager Paul Griffin's hordes of enforcers.
Make of it what you will. For myself I cannot see how an organisation can be that negligent, so have I been 'got at' as those poor sods as described by our Pam Pickett were, by a surely 'not fit for purpose' licensing team?
We will see what the next one brings...
Victor Swift