magpie patrick
-
Posts
9,025 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
8
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Blogs
Store
Posts posted by magpie patrick
-
-
1 hour ago, David Mack said:
I find it hard to believe that the assets of the Rochdale Canal Company were worth as little as that in the late 1990s. The area occupied by the canal is a huge amount of land, much of it in urban areas, which in other circumstances could have been built on. That would surely have realised a sum orders of magnitude bigger than half a million quid.
I don't know what was purchased but it's a fair bet that Town Centre Securities (who owned the Rochdale Canal pre-restoration) transferred any obviously profitable sites to another entity before selling the canal.
For the canal itself the physical restrictions, diversion of the water supply/drainage function and the planning policies on place to protect it by the late 1990s would make it almost impossible to develop it.
If it were now, the owners would struggle to give it away.
-
12 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:
I think what I said before is that the £537,090 was used to buy the assets (i.e. stock) of the Rochdale Canal Company. The Rochdale Canal became to property of The Waterways Trust. The Waterways Trust later became the property of Canal and River Trust.
Here is a link (use the "charges" check box to limit the search and look at the first and last document -
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03728156/filing-history
Thanks Allan, you have confirmed what I suspected
Where that leaves the rest of the grant I don't know - and no I don't have my own copy of the project file!
1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:If the 'maintenance' part was over a period (say 20 years). Would the agreed amount not be depreciated, in the accounts, over the period ?
To elaborate more on why this isn't "how tis done"
Bear in mind thgat to get approval for the capital grant the applicant has to have a plan as to how maintenance will be undertaken.
Let us suppose that a grant of £10 million was approved to restore canal and that it had to be maintained in a navigable condition for 30 years. On year 29 it closes and investigation finds that the owners have no intention of trying to reopen it, arguing "we almost made it".
If this was because of a technical failure way beyond their control (perhaps canal washed away in extreme floods) and enormously expensive to fix on an otherwise well maintained canal the breach of contract would have occurred in year 29 due to circumstances beyond their control, still a breach, still a clawback but not a very big one.
Now suppose the same owner had done no maintenance at all in the hopes the capital works would last 30 years but, not surprisingly all the gates are rotten and none of the locks work anymore, the canal is silted and one season of non-use has led to widespread reed growth blocking the channel. Although the breach of contract regarding navigation started in year 29 the failure of maintenance started many years earlier. Could be a massive clawback with interest.
-
1
-
-
Just now, Alan de Enfield said:
Were you actually involved in the negotiation and awarding of the Rochdale Millenium grant ?
No, only in monitoring it's delivery which would mean I had to be fully aware of the conditions
1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:If the 'maintenance' part was over a period (say 20 years). Would the agreed amount not be depreciated, in the accounts, over the period ?
That's not how it works - there is no agreed repayments (too big a risk of it seeming "worth it" to breach the contract). To fail to see out the maintenance period would be a breach of contract that would invite clawback of the grant. The clawback clause is potentially the entire grant with interest, the amount would be determined by negotiation, arbitration or the courts and would depend on the circumstances.
4 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:Maybe the £500,000 shown in the 2021 accounts was simply the balance left to be 'closed off' in the 2021 accounts, leaving a balance of zero.
It's the reference to "ordinary stock" that intrigues me, that's not a grant as such. It sounds like a reference to purchasing the Rochdale Canal Company or similar (which would be "ordinary stock") but I don't know that this is what happened. Certainly the canal had to be purchased by the Waterways Trust, although I don't know whether they bough the company to achieve this.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, IanD said:
And the other longer-term grants, from councils and the EU? IIRC these had terms of 60 years, at least according to a poster involved in the negotiations -- maybe you should challenge him? 😉
I think I am that other poster, so to clarify, all grants for works have terms not only for spending the money, but for maintaining the asset on which it has been spent. The first means, for example, that the Rochdale Canal restoration had to be completed in accordance with the approved purposes, otherwise the money would need to be handed back, the second means that on completion it has to be maintained "according to the approved purposes" for a period of time. I do not recall what this period was for the Rochdale but I have never known the maintenance period to be less than 30 years and on the HLF funded section of the Cotswolds it is 80 years. Other grant bodies have their own approved purposes and periods over which the works must be maintained
1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:As was pointed out the last time this was discussed, the Rochdale Grant is now 'closed / voided / satisfied' as it has reached its closure date.
It no longer appears in the accounts as a liability or charge.
The facts are recorded at Companies house as below :
I would have to check what that charge of securities is for; the short particulars suggest it wasn't for an £11.5 million pound grant, not just because of the amount but because of the reference to "ordinary stock" - a grant is not "ordinary stock". The canal was in private ownership before restoration (Technically the Rochdale Canal Company, who were in turn owned by City Centre Securities) so it may be that.
The Millenium Commission was dissolved in 2006 and it's assets and liabilities were transferred to the Big Lottery Fund, which is now normally known by the name National Lottery Community Fund
-
1
-
-
9 minutes ago, jonesthenuke said:
It's bad enough having made them Grade 2 listed. Change the gates to steel and save money (I will hide for a while now!)
Marple locks are caving in one every couple of years at £2-3 million a pop - steel gates is small change.
-
2 hours ago, John Brightley said:
Here's the advert for Harlech Castle in Hoseasons 1979 brochure:
The livery was light green - but a shade darker than the photo here, more like that on the Waterways World photo on the original post.
Those were the days - five people on a forty footer!
-
7 minutes ago, billh said:
I maybe mixing things up a bit? Wasn't it Peak Forest Cruisers at the wharf , now housing, about 200 yards north of Macc Marina? Did they have a company re-name or were there two operators there? Memory must be going a bit!
I think you're right - I can't find an advert of the period but even as I wrote it "Castle Cruisers" didn't seem right.
-
Given its Bosley Locks and the magazine is dated November 1977 then I'd go for the one in Macclesfield - Castle Cruisers
9 hours ago, magnetman said:The bridge bars narrow it down a bit.
Not as much as you'd think for a hire boat in the north west. Time was almost every hire boat within striking distance of the Llangollen has them.
Dad took some students up the Llangollen in a Willow Wren Kearnes 70 foot 12 berth, in the days when they had wooden cabins, it didn't have bridge bars and half way through the trip the A level woodwork student had an impromptu project resulting from a lift bridge incident
-
I get a similar noise in my flat if the wind is blowing across the bathroom window at the right speed - took me a long time to work out what it was. My flat doesn't move, your boat presumably does, which would add another variable.
Should perhaps add my bathroom window is always open a crack for passive ventilation, other windows are not.
-
15 hours ago, Pluto said:
Both great photos, but I like this one especially - just look at the way that cargo is retained!
-
Unless the other guy was thr bridge keeper one wonders what the honorable member's gripe with him was? I mean, one doesn't normally get in a heated discussion about such things with random strangers!
-
Heaven knows where this belongs, but it's not general boating. As the lock in question is now closed I though H&H would do!
Photo below taken from the IWI website where the 2019 World Canal Conference is featured. The lock is on the old route of the Grand Canal in Yangzhou, a city on the north bank of the Yangtze. The lock drops to the level of the Yangtze from the canal level. What drew my attention was the odd shaped inlet on the right side of the lock
Next is a pic of the same lock in 2007, taken from the Flickr account of John Meckley. It shows the lock in use and thus it is clear that the inlet is part of the chamber
And finally a view from Google Earth which clearly shows the inlet leading to what looks to be a non-navigable drainage channel. The weed growth suggests the lock is no longer in operation and there are parallel locks on the new canal route
Question - im pretty sure no one will know but if anyone wants to speculate.... why would a drainage channel join in a lock in this way? Why put the inlet in rather than just a pipe? Why not above or below the lock? The lock is fairly new (post war) so there would have been some flexibility over it's location
For those who are curious, these are the locks on the new route
-
9 minutes ago, IanD said:
Presumably the same reasons that Nigel and Susan at Shire Cruisers are looking to sell up -- though the increasing number of stoppages affecting them is probably also a factor... 😞
Shire Cruisers get hit from both directions - floods AND frequent lock failures!
-
1
-
-
1 minute ago, Tigerr said:
Elsewhere I see anglo Welsh have pulled their operation on the Thames because threat of flood has rendered it unviable.
I'd heard that too, and am certainly aware that rivers are closed "more than they used to be" - that's another pressure on hire operators.
-
Let me put it another way - how much margin would it be wise to allow over the combined width of the boats! an extra foot? two feet? three?
-
2 minutes ago, LadyG said:
I dont think that there is any doubt the CRT are struggling, plenty of proof, but the government are unlikely to help with funding. They will point to their earlier suggestion that CRT find their own alternative funding sources, and that will be the end of the matter.
Which would start by increasing licence fees for hire boats, which would result in even more giving up!
One big problem from the commercial perspective is that fees would have to go up before the system improves.
On another note, I believe the owner of the company in Skipton is 66, and thus has one eye on retirement and certainly won't want to carry on is it's getting harder (I can relate to that - I'll carry on so long as it's straightforward). I suspect business owners in their sixties seeking to get out will become more common - like everything else about the canals, the demographic of business owners is probably getting older
-
1 minute ago, BEngo said:
The other important consideration is pier width. Little point in having a, say, 2 m fire gap on the water side when the boat on the other side of the pier is only 600 mm away.
A decent width pier also makes it easier to load and unload "stuff", like gas bottles or coal and all the paraphenalia needed for a trip out.
N
Indeed - I normally add between 600mm and one metre for pier width - but I'm specifically looking at width for boats to prevent the likelihood of them damaging each other by scraping or banging against each other - yes I know you can use fenders but to do that there has to be room for them!
-
Just now, Tonka said:
I am surprised their isn't a minimum distance to deter fire from spreading. Perhaps the fire department may know
Fair comment, although looking at most marina's I've been to there isn't such a restriction - whilst the boats don't touch one can reach across and shake hands with your neighbour and I'm sure flames could leap that gap
3 minutes ago, David Mack said:
To add, the two narrow boats next to each other in front of the building is the kind of thing I have in mind.
Whilst t wasn't what I was asking, I guess that for the longer piers the gap is bigger than that required just to moor a third boat as boats actually have to travel through it? So pair of moorings the gap might be sixteen feet but for those with a passage between them it might be more like 26 feet?
-
Thanks @Tony Brooks, I'm aware of those and for a while I was on one such mooring at Scholar Green. It works well where there is a long thinnish basin with the entrance at one end, not so good on square basins with the entrance in the middle
Just now, David Mack said:That is presumably for piers that are only one boat long. Where longer piers are used to accommodate multiple boats, then you really need a clear space in the middle at least 7 feet wide to allow access for the inner boats. The view below is Circus Field Basin at Aylesbury where the long piers are more widely spaced than the short piers. The one wide gap bottom left is to allow access to the paint dock in the main building.
Interesting pic! But yes I'm referring to piers that are one boat long
-
Eyup, a straightforward (I hope) question. In many marinas there are rows of piers which two narrow boats are expected to fit between. How far apart should these be? I've always specified five metres, (just over 16 feet) so that properly secured boats can have some fendering between the boat and the pier and still not touch each other, but I've never found a standard or documented best practice. I've a feeling the old BW marina development guide had one, but they have withdrawn that so it's no longer online.
I don't do detailed design so I've only ever needed approximate figures to work out how big the marina needs to be or how many boats will fit in a given space.
Any thoughts? Or anyone fancy measuring the distance at the marina they are in?
Thanks
-
Just now, Ewan123 said:
Locks, but details TBC. From the booklet:
"The Marine Navigation System, composed of a combination of locks, will enable ships and vessels to pass through the barrage, maintaining the Mersey Estuary’s role as a key shipping and navigation route. The size and number of locks are subject to further studies and discussions with port operators, and could be located together on one side or on both sides of the barrage. The size of the locks will be based on vessel requirements, such as leisure, commercial and military vessels, to ensure they can pass through the barrage and up the River Mersey."
I'd seen that but hadn't understood that "marine navigation system" was code for "locks"...
-
Is there any suggestion as to how boats and ships would get through it? I guess it's possible the docks could be used to bypass the barrage. It isn't clear in the consultation exactly where the barrier would be
I note they're talking about a fixed, solid barrage, whereas these days the talk on the Severn is more of bi-directional turbines on the bed.
-
I don't think it would and I don't think it's intended to - that looks like a schedule of the reservoir to be inspected. One of the requirements of the Reservoirs Act is to have basic asset information like this. The only one I've been involved with in any detail is Gorton - UU and the inspectorate didn't need to inspect the reservoir to know the spillway wasn't up to modern standards, the asset schedule told them it wasn't.
Incidentally the modern spillway there is one reason the restoration proposals take the canal into the reservoir rather than the historic route across the head bank. If you want to see a reservoir inspector go pale suggest a new aqueduct on a headbank over a spillway.... it's not just the end product but the construction process that would worry them.
-
The Chesterfield Canal Trust are designing new locks (well, one lock) at the moment. Might be worth talking to them
CRT's plan for better boating
in Waterways News & Press
Posted
I would have to look at the funding contract - however I think there is a lot of confusion above about what a charge entails, and whether a funding contract is one.
The typical wording is along the lines of "and shall be maintained for the approved purposes for a period of thirty years...." to not maintain the scheme for the approved purposes is a breach of contract.
BW tried to stop trips at Standedge and got pulled up on this one.
I don't know whether breach of grant contract would show up as a charge the way that these other items do - I suspect it wouldn't. I also suspect the managers of many grant aided schemes (not just canal ones) 20plus years after the event, are blissfully unaware of these condition until they get bitten by them.