CLIMBING up Adderley Locks yesterday (April 26th) Lock 3 (pictured below) leaks so badly that we had to use the boat to push open the top gate, as level water could not be reached, writes Ralph Thomason.
The people at CaRT are now aware as I have alerted them, and they have said they will 'look into it'.Watch this space as they say.
For 'the use of all'
I am acutely aware that CaRT seem to be spending a lot of time and money improving towpaths for 'the use of all'. Cyclists now go ever faster on sleek, expensive bikes now the towpaths have been tarmacked (at what expense?), and dog walkers the nation over seem to believe that the canal is where to take their dog to 'relieve itself'.
The increase in this is becoming alarming to the point of a health hazard when using moorings anywhere in almost any built up area. Notably the 'better off' areas are actually worse for this!
Locks left neglected
Many boaters can see that locks are left neglected, with the above example on the busy, popular Shropshire Canal. Any summer stoppage here would be chaos... and I can see it coming, that lock is awful. Enough is enough.
The canals themselves are, in many places, in dire need of dredging. Most of the Ashby Canal is a classic case for that, as are several parts of the busy routes along Trent & Mersey, Macclesfield, Coventry and Oxford Canals.
Serving the wrong people
It costs a lot of money for all of us who have boats to use the canals.
It costs all the other folk that use the Canals—NOTHING, to whom CaRT is 'bending over backwards' with ever increasing 'improvements' to towpaths. They aren't improvements from a boaters point of view.
Mooring pins won't go into a tarmacked path. Boats can't be handled with ropes properly as ones feet slip away on either tarmac or shale. A claim may go in there one day perhaps, as the towpath is indeed not fit for purpose?
CaRT needs to step back
CaRT needs to step back and look at what the canals actually are and why they were built. The canals of Britain are a significant piece of industrial history. Their making laid down the infrastructure that fuelled the Industrial Revolution that built Britain, and ultimately, led us to where we all are today. There is a strong claim that all Britain's canals should be made a World Heritage Site.
They were saved in the 1960s & 1970s, not by cyclists and walkers or joggers, but by boat enthusiasts. For it was their actions that prevented all the canals from being closed.
Boats
They were built for the transit of traffic. Boat traffic.
So maintain them with that as priority, please, for unless you do, they will become just nice towpaths next to ditches of water.
N.B. We inadvertently thought the 'Ralph' who wrote this piece was Ralph Freeman, but it was not, it was Ralph Thomason, so have changed the name and offer our sincere apologies to both parties—Editor.