I never saw any padlocked gates on the journey. Travelled east, got multiple idiot youths shooting at us and trying to steal things off the boat between Miles Platting and Failsworth, ended up stuck at Failsworth basin for 3 days due to no water in the next pound. According to the "Oldham Council youth street team", Failsworth Tesco is where Manchester youths and Oldham youths gather to cause trouble, not a nice place to moor. A lock or two further up it's completely different, much nicer, everything was ok from lock64 eastwards.
The entire West side of the canal seemed to be short of water, and as far as I could see it mainly gets water from the summit. There's a leak in the second pound down from the summit on the East side, local CRT lady gives instructions on how to let water through the top 2 locks to re-fill the pound "until the 2nd fence post is under". As far as I could see the water is leaking out into an adjacent field then draining through a sports field drainage system back into the next pound down, only skipping past one lock. As a consequence there's a bit too much water in the East side from there onwards, with towpaths awash and water 8-12" over the top of some lock gates.