Bristolfashion

And the chances of the government slinging extra cash at canals, with all the other areas requiring money and no further tax rises. Hmm, about zero I'd say.

But, in order for the government to pay, they have to raise tax from sectors (or all) of the population - yep, pigs might fly! So your vision is a gradual decline & closures?

I know it's an old thread, but just in case my experience is useful to anyone. My brass pump was not pumping AND I couldn't get the top off to prime. The solution was to use one of those little cheapy brass hand pumps to pull oil through the fixed pump which got it primed and pumping.

Oh, I see, well I'd be happy to pay a higher licence fee to more accurately pay for my boating, I was more thinking about my monthly donation as somewhat paying for my general enjoyment and use of CRT infrastructure in the same way I support the RSPB, wildlife trusts & National Trust. One other thing I've been thinking about is the Trust building an "end of life" fund (for boats, not boaters). There are quite a lot of notifications about sunken / abandoned / "terminal" non licensed/ insured/BSS boats and they can be pretty expensive to deal with in difficult locations. I see that the total annual cost is estimated at substantial. My idea is a small first registration charge to reflect the theoretical end of life cost of a boat based on recovery / removal costs and % likelihood. Over time, a fund would build up to deal with these costs - and the additional cost for a new narrowboat would be inconsequential.

I guess that this is part of the endless and rather insoluble debate between public funding and "user pays" - theoretically, any increase in funding involves either an increase in government receipts (such as tax) or a decrease in expenditure elsewhere. Enough "few pence" a month burdens on government expenditure adds up to "several pounds"! Personally, I'm happy to pay a bit more tax for such things, but that doesn't seem a common attitude. My own view is that my licence pays for my boating & my donation for other access & a bit of general support - but only a tiny percentage of users are donors.

Yes, I did think that you'd rather missed to point of the other poster's comment. Glad to help. 😉 Not necessarily navigation, but the use of the infrastructure for leisure.

From my observations this season, there is an enormous use of the towpath by walkers, dog walkers, ramblers and cyclists which dwarfs any use of the system by boaters - how to extract any support for maintenance of the network from these groups is the issue. The other area I've been thinking about is the absolutely enormous wildlife reserve provided by the canals together with their unique "wildlife corridor" feature. This "nature reserve" is probably in the order of the same size as all the land owned by the wildlife trusts in England - and they raise substantial funds.

I think that the poster means a passionate, media savvy "face" for the canals, able to promote all their benefits and tie together all of the users and supporters.

Number 2 for Darryl - extremely thorough, willing to chat things through and helpful.

Thanks Adam yep, problem solved with your help.

Hi all, we've arrived at a lock and the crew raised both paddles on the downstream lock gates (double gates, narrow lock) before realising that the gates are chained by CRT. We can't for the life of us work out how to release the mechanism to lower the paddles again! Any ideas? I'll post a photo of the mechanism in a few minutes. It's the Intogear (marked) type with a gear box. Thanks, as ever. It's Kilton lock on the Chesterfield just outside Worksop. And, yes, whilst I diligently researched the CRT assisted passage notice on Mondays & Thursdays, I then promptly forgot again - D'oh!

There are 2 day CRT visitor moorings before the Glory Hole (and Brayford Pool) when coming from Torksey. Today, there was loads of space there - but that's not always the case. The moorings just after the Glory Hole were pretty full yesterday, but lots of space further on before the lock.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/gLyX6sFNbQVhmzWA7 A short video of us going through Ferry bridge https://photos.app.goo.gl/YBdwr2Yjvek1tZeA8 And the head of the navigation at Cobblers Lock. Having wandered up and measured it - that's a bit optimistic on their part - we measured it at 1.75m

We got through! We walked up from South Kyme and measured the clearance at 175cm. Our air draft is 168cm with everything off the roof. We also walked into Sleaford and, fortunately, met a couple of guys from the restoration team. On the day, we reckon we had 3 or 4cm of clearance, so maybe the water has risen a cm or so. Video / pix to follow.