THOUGH not of course aware of the condition of the pumps supplying the pound at Bradford-on-Avon on the Kennet & Avon Canal, the many failures surely point to them needing replacing.
As will be gathered, one is out of order again and the other struggling to maintain water level, even though we are told a few boats are managing to get through.
Reduced capacity
The reason given for the failure is that one pump is 'completely blocked and the other working at reduced capacity', though in the past a blocked pump has been quickly cleared and if a pump is working at reduced capacity there is something wrong with it.
It is now three weeks since this spate of failures first started, and before then pump failures were a fairly regular occurrence, so perhaps it is time both pumps were replaced with new ones.