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On CRT overspending: There's a project to repaint a 1990s steel footbridge over the canal. Basically a case of pressure-washing it, wire-brush a couple of areas of rust, new coat of paint. Access to the underside from the local canal group's workboat. The local council has offered to pay for the paint and local groups to provide the boat and volunteers. CRT insist that the entire structure must be hermetically encapsulated with plastic sheeting over scaffolding. Every area of paint must be tested for lead. Water must be tested during and after the work for contamination. And so on, despite the entire structure post-dating any use of lead paint and the exact product used being known. Obviously the projected cost goes from three figures to five and becomes totally unviable. Consequence: instead of the bridge being repainted at zero cost to CRT, they now get to watch it rust away for the next couple of decades until it falls down. The same blind and disproportionate checklist application applies to their own internal works, and accounts for the ridiculous timescales and costs of doing the simplest things. The other thing is a total lack of urgency resulting in trivial problems becoming huge and expensive ones. Most glaringly the missing bywash deflector at Tyrley -- four bolts took two years to replace, and now the entire opposite wall has been scoured away and will need rebuilding at a cost of £££. Plus all the damage to boats bouncing off it.

Ian, You probably have the best insight of anyone on here into the framework within which CRT is constrained to work and also (unfortunately) following the recent elections, less ability to influence that which can be changed within the bounds of the possible. I did have a few thoughts which I would welcome your views on around volunteers. I am aware of the concurrent thread on the subject, but your post on this thread seems more aligned as a jumping off point. If you take as a starting premise that there is not enough money to do all that needs to be done, and that there is no realistic route by which the funding will be significantly be increased, the conclusion becomes that it will either not be done, or it will have to be done without money (or at least with a lot less money) since, as @Grassman discussed, there are costs and allowances for volunteers). However, in parallel, there are things which if done now are a lot cheaper and a lot less disruptive than if done later, but the challenge is to identify them without that carrying a significant cost. So here are a couple of thoughts. 1. Volunteer lengthspeople. There is no realistic prospect of paid lengthsmen returning, but much of the network is used by people on foot - in fact this is actually one of the key indentified values of the system as an open space/linear park/pedestrian and cycle route away from traffic. What if people who walk a length on a daily basis were able to volunteer as a 'lengthsperson' whose job was simply to spot potential issues. The difference between this and a layperson would be a) some basic training on what type of thing to look out for and report and b) sharing the map/plan with them for the length they have volunteered for so that they know specifically what to keep an eye on - culverts etc. I'm not talking about proper inspections but if you walk the dog daily and one day you see water running and you know there is a culvert there, that could be a whole lot less costly to sort out than a full breach and at least it could pinpoint where to send inspection teams. It has the added advantage of not actually taking any time that is not already spent, so increasing the number of volunteer hours against KPIs. 2. Anecdotally, I hear of a mismatch arising at times - there is a list of minor issues that need resolving but with a triage approach they never make it to the top of the list. Simultaneously, there are times when the on the ground CRT maintenance teams are sent to a job but the materials don't turn up, or it takes less time than expected. It does appear that there is potential resource available to address some of these minor issues if the operational side was coordinated - some with volunteer labour (filling in holes behind piling so people don't break their ankle does not require specialist training for example), some with formalised volunteer labour through canal society work parties where slightly more specialist skills may be required (there would appear to be things which the teams @Grassman mentioned would be well placed to tackle) and partly by an approach of 'the CRT team will be on the ground at this location today - priority 1 is the job they are going there to do, but if they get done early or a problem arises, these are the things to put on the van so that the team can go on and deal with these minor issues'. The number mentioned last summer was 8000 outstanding minor jobs so the backlog will not get dealt with quickly, but there could be a way to at least stop it growing? I would welcome your thoughts on the above. Am I heading down a sensible thought line here or are there good reasons I am not aware of why it is not practical? Any other areas which from your experience there may be ways to tackle within the current, and ongoing, constraints? Alec

I'll leave it to others more familiar with the RN to comment on the competence of present day RN Officers. I know it's amusing to poke fun at the cause of the incident, but I have been round ships long enough to know that occasional mechanical failures do occur which are not the fault of those on the bridge and I will wait to see what the findings of the ongoing inquiry are before making any comments. I can sympathise with all those who were on the bridge at the time and for their sake I do hope it is found to be a mechanical failure. Howard

Yes exactly. Navy boats this big will probably need large engines such as a Kelvin K3. And the gearbox on a K3 is known to jam in astern occasionally. Yes, that's probably what happened.

Left hand down a bit.🙂

How exactly would getting rid of one man fix things? Do you think replacing him with someone who promised Boris-like to deliver the world but signally failed when faced with funding realities would help? You're making Parry a scapegoat for problems that he can't do anything about, lack of money to maintain an ancient bit of infrastructure being the fundamental one... 😞 Ever since the restored canals like the Rochdale opened twenty-odd years ago the problem has been getting worse, because these added expensive-to-maintain sections (lots of locks over high hills with water restrictions) to the network which are now needing more and more work with less and less money to pay for it. This has got worse since CART was formed with optimistic fundraising aims which could never have realistically been delivered, and it's continuing to get worse as real-cost funding drops every year and maintenance costs -- labour and especially materials -- continue to rise. Yes this has happened while Richard Parry was in charge, but I can't see what anyone else could have done differently or better given the funding/cost/need imbalance, or how getting rid of him can magically fix this -- which is going to carry on getting worse in future, even with license fee increases... 😞

I only really know the Rochdale well, we are too long for the L&L and just a tiny bit too fat for the HNC, though have done sections of both with friends. My own view, and Ian Mac might correct me here, is that the Rochdale is mostly in pretty good condition, the lock gates are solid and work well. They are heavy and some don't open all the way due to rubbish, and there is much too much rubbish on the 18 but thats down to it passing through a very deprived urban area. A canal with so many locks and short pounds (and without its original resevoirs) is going to have low water levels at times, and statistically is going to have more failures. Fixing big wide Northern locks will be a bigger job than the little Southern things. It could be better if CRT had a few more more resources. The 18 did get a bit overgrown and neglected a couple of years ago (probably when you came up, and when you helped us up) but was looking much better this year. I think its easy to have a bad time on the 18 (you were there with us 😀) and over equate this with bad maintanance. The South Oxford was not so good last time we went down, some of the T&M and Shroppie were not looking too good last year, and I remember a few locks that we shared with you on the lower Soar looked not too good. Considerring the relative use of the North and Midlands waterways CRT are probably allocating resources correctly. My big concern is that the Northern canals have a lot of lock gates that will all expire at the same time and cause a big problem.

Some here seem to think that Parry is doing a poor job, and describe what he should be doing instead. None of what is suggested is difficult to understand. Parry is intelligent & can read what is said here, so why do they think he is not doing what they suggest? If he is not doing what is bleedin' obviously necessary, why do the critics think he is choosing to behave in this way? I think he is probably doing the best possible with the options at his disposal, but I have no info to back this up.

Yep. And wasn't Boris the most perfect example of this happening anyone can think of? As soon as he got in he sacked all the competent old hands in the tory party and appointed new ministers according to their track record of arse-licking, just as you describe.

What happens is that at first one incompetent arsehole by accident worms his or her way to the top. Said arsehole has several good mates who then promotes cos they are his or her mates. Eventually the job is run by arseholes. Works perfectly well for governments after all.

Just rewired the engine bay to follow @nicknorman's instructions. All works well and have the added bonus of it automatically switching over to charge when i turn the genny on. Very chuffed

Dimensions can only ever be a rough guide, and canal depth changes from day to day, heavy rain can create little shoals, and shopping trollies are a big variable. Another factor is how much effort a boater is prepared to live with, for some just touching the bottom is a big issue. Our last trip up the Rochdale required a little bit of bow hauling by myself and the volunteer to get us over a significan shoal, but the Oxford summit also often gives us a little bit of trouble though the bottom is nice and soft. Should the stated dimensions be for "trouble free" boating, or boating with a bit of effort and a few scrapes?

<RANT> Assisted passages are done mainly these days, by me, and I'm very busy at the moment, attempting to manage the death of my father. I am a volunteer, and I have chosen to help people on the Rochdale, particularly the Manchester 18, because I know how many people find it difficult, and I wish to see the canal used more. It is not a narrow canal and single handing a narrow boat through these broad locks is hard work. It is also not the Grand Union with its little fall locks, nearly all the lock fall more than Denham Deep! Ideally as on any canal you need a team of three to efficiently move a boat with the minimum waste of water. I am constantly amazed by the number of people who are surprised by the Rochdale canal, and the amount of effort it requires. If you know what you are doing and how it works and its little foibles, one can really crack on. I have taken my boat from Ashton to Middleton Junction one day and then the next day on to Todmorden, there were three of us, and we draw well over 3ft, they were not easy days but we did it. Also I have taken other boats the other way in a day. As to the current stoppage on the 18, As the trust has no money due to the erosion of the government Grant by inflation, (was planned I suspect) which in real terms has reduced the available pot by about 20%. This means the trust is in Fix on failure mode, it does not have the resources to do preventative maintenance. This situation has been made far worse, because the rules for reservoirs have change, as a result of Todbrook. This does not just apply to C&RT but also the Water utilities, it is costing a mega fortune to fix them all. The trust can not say they will do them tomorrow the law does not allow that as an option. So ever since Todbrook the trust has been spending tens of millions on reservoirs, each year. Another problem is that the trust is the only charity, which I am aware of, which has statuary duties IE things it must do by law. Providing free towpath access is one of those duties, so towpaths have to come first. The right of navigation was removed over 60 years ago. Changing the CEO will not alter any of this, in fact it will prove to be a very expensive process, as I'm sure you will find out in the not to distant future when Mr Parry decides to step down. Getting a new CEO will be an expensive process, unless you want a muppet to do the job, and you may get one anyway, if care is not taken. The Trust is one of the top 30 charities in the country and CEOs even for charities do not come cheap. The CEO of the Welcome Trust is on well over half a million a year for example. Oh! plus benefits of course. The other thing is the the CEO does not determine what happens it is the board which does that they are called Trustees these days for a charity. One thing of significance which has occurred is that the Chair of the Trustees has recently changed, and this is making a difference David Orr gets that it is all about boats moving. His first formal canal visit was actually to the Rochdale canal in Newton Heath, I know that because I organised that visit. He gets canals. He is also between a rock and a hard place because all the different canal users are fighting each other rather than the true enemy. They all seem to think it is the other users who are the problem, not HMG. If HMG increase its funding to say over 60M a year linked to inflation, it would be a very different picture and the small hole on the offside of lock 67 would probably be already fixed. </RANT> -- cheers IAn MAc

All true, but like so many other things like schools and roads and hospitals if you're short of money it's easy to save some in the short term by cutting back on maintenance. The problem is that some years down the line this comes back to bite you as things start falling apart like canals and schools and roads and hospitals, and in the long-term you have to spend more money than if you hadn't skimped on maintenance. Governments -- especially the current bunch of in-a-sack-infighters -- seem to hope that kicking the can down the road means they can put off addressing difficult problems until later -- prevarication -- or that by the time the chickens come home to roost it'll be somebody else's problem -- blame transferral. Their attitude to the canals is no different to many much more crucial things like schools and roads and hospitals, and seeing as how they can't sort these out it doesn't look good for the poor old canals. The fact that the total sum needed for the canals -- where they say they can't afford to spend more -- is smaller than they wasted on just one Covid corruption with Mone tells us which they value more, canals or cronies... 😞

Perhaps you could set out in detail, for those of us who do not know, what these non-essentials are, and how much money might be saved if they were cut. Please can you provide evidence that CRT has excess management structure, perhaps by comparison with the structure of similar organisations, and again show how much money might be freed up for additional front line essentials (taking into account that those additional front line essentials will also require managing).

Yes but just how big are these lumps?

Seems like left hand, right hand??? That page links through to the 'Boat condition. Declaration for a short term licence'. Years ago it was limited to 56 days iirc but no mention of limits now.

I fear that discretion has been increasingly replaced by tick box procedures in a number of fields. My wife bemoaned its introduction shortly before she left teaching. In the civil servuce at least, in some cases the object appears to have been to reduce the need for higher-grade (and therefore more expensive) staff who are capable of using their brains, by instigating check list processes that can be carried out by cheaper, lower-grade, staff.

I've had the Samsung Galaxy A9 phone since March 2018 and it's still going strong, battery lasts all day unless I am using it a lot. Try to disable Bing though, horribly intrusive.

Do you mean KJ/Kg?

Only if you upload the photo!

They can't do that, Shirley. How can I consistently know what I'm buying if they keep changing the recipe? Imagine if Mr kipling did that. Then where would we be.

CRT/BW have always struggled with dimension information. In the early 00s (or late 90s?) Paul Wagstaffe at BW worked with HNBOC on a document which is still the definitive ground-truthed list of what can fit where. Unfortunately it’s been reworked and replaced numerous times since. I think there’s traditionally a confusion between “what fits though the structures”, “what are we prepared to support operationally this week”, and (most exasperatingly) “what is some half-remembered figure we saw somewhere once or copied down from an old Nicholsons”. The early 00s document was unusual in that it was very rigorously “what fits” and explained each individual pinch point.

I thought they were supposed to be the best? All these examples of cock ups. They sound like a bunch of rank amateurs.

Good cos I doubt it could get any worse than that crossing Simon made. Daryl did confess to me that they really should not have been out it those conditions but hey ho they lived to tell the tale. As @Kendorr said "It's a once in a lifetime" thing - for most of us. You may find it exciting at times but you will definitely be happy you did it.

It'll buff out.

Oh I have my own views. But I'm asking you for yours, with evidence. You are very quick to claim all sorts of faults with CRT, but whenever anyone asks you to support your position, you just just deflect the issue with smart-arse responses like the one above.

But they save NI, holiday and sick pay and they can be laid off without problems.

Totally OT but this reminded me of something. We were once working on a project related to a new type of high efficiency cable. There were various companies involved - the company developing it, a cable manufacturer and a utility. Our job was working out how to join it. To understand the requirements, the utility arranged for us to attend a splicing job where a buried 11kV line was being cut and extended into a new substation; I attended with my project engineer and lead technician and all the other companies involved also sent a couple of people so that we could all go away understanding what needed to be done to make this work. The cable was buried along the side of a minor country road so there was traffic control in place and we stood along the closed side of the road behind the barriers, all in hi-viz provided by the utility company, wearing hard hats. Towards the end of the day, we realised that all day long anyone passing would have seen this this highly visible line of nine people all wearing the utility's logo on their hi-viz, staring into a trench, while two people were actually doing any work, and probably concluded that the ratio of supervisors to workers was why their electricity bills were so high! Alec

Which is admirable.....but you need to consider how much fossil fuel is burned to kiln dry your logs. Ecoal is 40% renewable materials.