ON your [Canal & river Trust] website you state that there are 1,500 locks and you build around 180 locks a year for a total cost of two million pounds—equating to roughly £12,000 per lock, wrote Patrick Cull in an email to the Trust.
I have just travelled from Batchworth Lock to Cowroast Lock, a journey of roughly 13 miles and 30 locks on the Grand Union Canal (give or take) and I am appalled to say that locks in a good state of repair were in a minority, making it hard to believe that that stretch of the Grand Union has seen any repair or new locks within the last couple of years let alone the fact that at the rate stated on your website, you could replace every single lock every eight years.
Times are hard
I appreciate that times are hard and if reports are to be believed, you have not had much success in fund raising so I have an idea for you.
Why not approach local communities and raise funds (circa £12,000 using my rudimentary mathematics) to repair local locks. People who donate say £500 will get a plaque on the beams of the lock and others...well I'm sure your marketing department can come up with other ideas—well I say that—I suggest personal and or private tours of the empty lock might be a good start.
Projects that are tangible
People like to donate money for projects which are tangible and which they can see and show off—think park benches etc and this, I think, would tick most boxes. Where possible you might enlist local artisans/labour thus helping CaRT to be a national charity yet a community based one.
I am sure, you (collective) of all people understand that you are the custodians of our waterways and by extension those which choose to work, live and play on them. I would very much like for you not to screw this responsibility up, so please take this idea in the spirit in which it is meant and not a criticism.
He was embarrassed
Actually, the idea behind lock repair came to me going through locks in an awful state. The CaRT chap who was helping keep water levels up told me he was embarrassed at their condition (he had been with BW before).It was only doing the figures 1,500 locks divided by 180 a year (your figures) that I realised the figures vs work done don't stack up, as out of 30 locks on my journey, I would say 20 or more need work some seriously (brick work crumbling—the first course of bricks have peeled off the wall). I think I might apply what is left of my brain pan to how I can try an affect some change, either via nudge or prod.
In the spirit it was meant
I am sure, you (collective) of all people understand that you are the custodians of our waterways and by extension those which choose to work, live and play on them. I would very much like for you not to screw this responsibility up, so please take this idea in the spirit in which it is meant and not a criticism.
I have become used to not hearing back from you so I shall acknowledge receipt of this email for you in advance - that's just the way I roll.
PS I would have attached photographs of barely functional locks, but they depress me so much I do not wish to pass that depression onto people I have never met
PPS I hope this email gets to you Sophie I couldn't find your official address.