PeterScott

A bit but on the subject of the extended closure of the Liverpool Link - I had this exchange with BW here in December and hopefully they have been advising users more encouragingly since then. Plank Lane has been shut, of course, but BW said they will take boaters through the Link by arrangement during March.

Clive's appointment as Observer on the BW board became public on the same day in 2010 that the Secretary of State announced that IWAC was to be abolished. DEFRA's press release archive seems not to go that far back: and boating calls this afternoon. The choreography in the Press Office will have followed the (slightly paraphrased) Sir Humphrey dictum that "The minister gives and the minister takes away": a balance of announcements. The exact wording is not the point at issue: there has been a long and unprecedented consultative and cooperative process since that time involving DEFRA BW and IWA, leading to the financial settlement, the shape of the C&RT governance, and the commitment to extend C&RT into EA waters. None of it is perfect, and I am more skeptical of the whole process than my colleagues, as here. The highlight of the Clive - Barry exchanges is in Questions 93 to 100. Video here (at about 12:15pm) and the best of Tony Hales was Q4 "...7,000 people walked through the Bingley high rise locks...". Just to return to the OP, which seems not to have been answered in this thread: The 'They' in the quote was BW, who have databases of boat-license-holders, of their commercial agreements and of their employees. There is a fundamental point of the whole process of co-operation that I mentioned above. Both charities are on the side of the Waterways, and at least in its 15-year funding commitment so is the Government. In that spirit it would be possible with good will on all sides to seek charitable monies and voluntary effort to benefit both charities - maybe benefiting the membership numbers of the IWA: the win-win so beloved of management consultants. Spot on. All the 'D&E condition monitoring' is much too narrow a measure. We need to know how well our new Navigation Authority is at being a Navigation Authority - how much navigating it has achieved.

I watched the EFRA committee hearing (here), and haven't yet read the written transcript. Barry Gardiner seemed to be getting the wrong end of the stick with Clive, asking questions as if Clive was a full member of the BW Board; BG seemed to be replaying his views of BW from when he was the Waterways Minister. The video in here reflects the views of most waterways people on BG's performance in those days imho. Clive is currently on a (private) visit to China, so unlikely to be reading views of the performance at the Committee, which I thought was more relaxed than BW's.

IWA is a (limited liabilty) company and of course we are a charity too. Ordinary volunteer boaters and other waterway enthusiasts need the limited liability to (mostly) avoid the risk of something going awry and all our houses being whisked away by the lawyers - who already live in big-enough houses of their own. We do some trading activities - running our National Festival, running the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation and selling books mainly, as well as the directly charitable work of supporting the Waterways. All the trading profits go to the charity.See here We don't own any boats on BW waters any more - but when we did own nbJubilee (for about 10yrs to 2006) it had a private boat license iirc, and we didn't use it for trading. It's the trading element that requires the commercial agreement with BW (the modern equivalent of the commercial boat license) and hence the different constituency for waterway traders in the election. Clive Henderson mentioned this election at the beginning of his evidence to the EFRA Select Committee on Tuesday: Clive's evidence starts at 1h2m30s, after BW's evidence. The exchanges with Barry Gardiner are interesting. For this election he had the ten boaters' nominations, as did all the other candidates, for his personal (and privately licensed) boat. And as with being appointed by Government as an observer on the BW board, this election is in a personal capacity. As chairman of the BW Advisory Board he was elected from that board's membership and was nominated to that by IWA. As an IWA trustee he was elected directly by our members to our trustee board, and elected by that board to be National Chairman: he was also appointed by the trustee board to be a director of our trading company, but he's not chairman of it. As trustees of a charity we have to register our interests with the Charities Commission and record in our meeting minutes any apparent or actual conflicts of interest - so it is important to work out which hat any of us is wearing at any one time, and we need to answer any criticisms that we are pursuing any business interests in our charitable work. Hence this dull answer :-)

Hmmm if it turns out to have been a leaky gate then BW would be righter in mending it:-)

This is the towpath last year, and it's obviously a good thing to be sorting it out at last. My email said: under a heading Towpath Closure only: Huddersfield Narrow Canal Huddersfield Narrow Canal, Between Bridge 87 and Bridge 85 Monday 20 February 2012 - Friday 23 March 2012 To facilitate re-build of fallen retaining wall. ... Enquiries: 01782 785703 And of course if you ring BW they will just read Waterscape back to you, so not much help there. It is worth sending a COMPLAINT sometimes. (eg here) I suppose with the East side closed by Stoppage: Sellers Tunnel/Lock 3E 01 Oct 2011 - 31 Mar 2012 and Standedge closed until 2 April and the other one mentioned Stoppage: Halls Lock 20W 09 - 30 Mar 2012 To allow localised dewatering of lock chamber for major grouting works they're not expecting many boat movements which would be inconvenienced by an extra bit of dewatering.. (Ed we crossed posts - yes the email heading did say the same as Waterscape)

Hmmm, slightly changing the subject from the election results, then. As there was some debate about it before, I wrote on my blog here how imho we should approach the issue in a more effective way than BW have in the past. In summary, we need more people to be part of the Waterways scene, by living on boats, by taking holidays on boats, and walking cycling fishing etc on the towing path - and it all needs a spirit of co-operation from all quarters. Much as I enjoyed the rant, I don't recognise any of it as a fair description of the current state of the Waterways.

OK here's the full story, then. For myself, I had decided to stand in the election as soon as we knew there was to be an election for all the boating representatives (as opposed to an earlier possibility of a larger Council with say four appointees from worth boating organisations and four elected). But the issue I had was the position of boaters who share their boats with others. This year we have but two shared boats - three last year - of which Elaine is our shareholder and Secretary of one and I do Treasurer and kitchen-sink-mender on the other. On this boat Rob had been the only name on the BW licence. It's a two-pint-story on how BW came to allow up to two shared-boat-owners to be allowed on the licence, but in order to be allowed into the election we added me as the second name. Enter now BW, being their normal lovable selves. Because we had changed one name on the license, they decided we had changed the owner: so they wouldn't take the Direct Debit that they already held from Rob's bank account because ... because they're BW I suppose, and that's the sort of thing they do. Disappointed we may be but surprised we aren't. In the end it didn't make any difference, but it was an unnecessary worry. Alongside that, there were some discussions on here about whether candidates needed both an annual license in Mid-Jan2012 and to have had one for a complete year beforehand: I think it was sloppy BW wording that created that impression, but in the end it wasn't necessary. In a couple of words in an email to colleagues I alluded to this issue (I didn't know about the Direct Debit at the time), and then there was a tangle of emails about whether it was resolved or not. This all happened on the last afternoon before IWA people in HQ went on their Christmas break, and the Bulletin got issued without my name on it. I was not pleased, to put it mildly, (if we didn't know what to say, we needn't have said anything at that stage) and a number of angry emails resulted. We had a go at some corrections later, but we're not all that good at being an online organisation, so as Alan points out, the original document remains. _sigh_ As to the five trustees for four positions: that does look odd, and it's true that STV gives the electors the choice instead of having an internal debate - but it still looks odd. We didn't talk about it between ourselves: we came to independent decisions we ended up with five trustees. Ivor was already being supported by RBOA, and was the first to throw his hat in the proverbial ring: I was next. Whatever we had done, our critics would have found criticisms eg that IWA were trying to take over the election by choosing exactly four candidates. It was also inevitable that other prominent activists who are not trustees would want to stand, and that others whose work is primarily with other voluntary waterway organisations would mention us as well. In the end the election is of individual boaters, who are there in their own right and can't be replaced with new people because the IWA chooses to. So on balance it's been better to encourage all who have something to offer to stand, and let the electors decide, which they have done. (I need more beer to cry into) And just to end on one last IWA messup - we agreed to mention the trustees who were standing in the Spring Waterways magazine (here), which is our best comminications with members not online. But it just didn't happen. More irritated emails. _sigh_

IWA has the support of lots of people, including those who also work in other voluntary waterway organisations. That's a good thing for the Waterways as a whole imho. It doesn't mean that IWA activists or members all say the same thing, or that a circular from IWA will cause members to take our recommendations. As to the four / five etc, as with lots of things in history, it's a messup rather than a conspiracy. (Watch the space for a bit more when I'm back from the dentist!)

Gosh I'm glad somebody asked that :-) It's a fascinating election count from the point of view of an STV-geek (I'm one of these, btw). But before we get to these abstruse points, it's worth sorting the results spreadsheet into the order of Col B - the first preference votes, and watch how the election progresses: basically Clive, Ivor and Vaughan were always going to be elected, and there were four others who jostled for the fourth position- RobDEAN AnnFARRELL PatPERRYBARTON SueCAWSON with AlanF fifty votes adrift and never quite in it (although DaveMayall's next preferences brought the deficit to within 35). Now the interesting (!) bit: this version of STV rules has a *declining* QUOTA - recalculated after each count to recognise that votes which have no further preferences for any of the continuing candidates have no further part to play in the election. At the end of the 28th count, Clive had 1237 votes against a Quota of 1249.61so he was thirteen votes adrift, and the bottom candidate had to be redistibuted. This was Sue CAWSON and because a lot of her 881 votes had no remaining preference (334 of them in fact) the quota declined to 1180.81. So although 76 of her votes went on to Clive, in fact he needed NONE of them because of the declining quota, and was therefore ELECTED by this count, without having needed any of the extra votes. This is where the rules become completely arbitrary: they say that only the packet which caused the elected candidate to exceed the quota are to be further redistributed. In this case the excess was not only the 76 in the packet but another 56.19 votes which come from Clive's votes from earlier counts. So all the 76 were further redistributed, and that has to be at their original value - all at 1.00 (I must check that the rules do say that specifically, and not imply an increase in value, which would be ludicrous) Only 26 had a further preference indicated so there were 50 votes which were non-transferrable PLUS those other 56.19 votes which were 'notionally' untransferrable, but you couldn't identify which ballot papers made up this total. Once that was done, there were four candidate elected above the QUOTA, so no more counting necessary. SO we have the strange conclusion that EVERY voter's vote was counted at 1.00 at every count through the whole election, and yet one of the candidates (correctly!) ended up with an odd 0.8 of a vote. I try making up strange scenarios in STV election counts, but I would not have come up with this one. But it doesn't make up for not winning - more crying into more beer, then :-)

Commiserations Alan: it would have been good to have an online voice on the Council. Having entered the election, the electors have chosen whom they most favoured and the rest of us will just have to cry into our beer. I am grateful to all those who voted, and particularly the 236 whose votes ended with me. I thought the turnout was good. I agree with the first bit, and I for one will be interested in how well we are all represented on the new body. Just as an example here we have published the output from a workshop jointly organised by C&RT and IWA in late Feb, with a large number of diverse waterway organisations. I had a prior bellringing appointment, so couldn't attend, but all those I have spoken to found it very constructive.

This was fascinating Two fire-in-engine experiences: once standing on the back here (and link inside that to burnt engine has gone awry) and once more heard of the problem the same day. We had 'betterment' issues in the second case but no other significant wriggling. Loss assessors were helpful. But it does seem worthwhile reading the smallprint for 'inherent defect' because of not previously understanding what that might mean.

In the car for emergencies Late ... traffic-jam ... relief ... dull meeting ... fuel-stop ... fill ... pay ... open door ... tread on ...

Wiggling the toes is very useful for exploring. Yes it was recovered.

We use CanalPlanAC with timings from our style of boating, and then it will do the calculations and suggest routes. Without specifying timings, as you say, predictions are slow. We use, for narrow canals 20mins/mile and 6mins/lock - with an extra 4mins for the first lock in a flight. As a quick planning alternative Chris Clegg's Canal Time Map is very good, and he uses trip data from 40 years' boating with a 27" depth narrowboat and mentions three fit adults for a crew. I agree that Leicester Line and Tidal Trent is quickest. Going on 'late' is really the best bit of the day imho, and it's only the tidal bits which need careful planning during these 10-hour (?) days. I haven't looked at the tides, but trying Cromwell to Keadby in one hop - we have done it - does need some luck in tide timings - and you would inevitably have some time against the tide, and maybe a plate-crashing aegre to avoid - best to assume an overnight at Torksey, therefore. That gives 13 days with Clegg-chart while CanalplanAC (using our settings) says 302 miles and 182 locks and 131 hours on the move. ] If you are prepared to leave Hackney before the end of the Paralympics, you are allowed to book through past the stadium 'out-of-hours', then out on to the Thames at Limehouse to Brentford - if that helps - although as you say both connections to the Regents Canal are to be welded closed for the whole Olympic period. No doubt PLA will be keen to enforce their VHF requirements and river police will be on their mettle. And there is a (ABP as navigation authority) VHF requirement on the Trent below Gainsborough - although I know of no enforcement above Keadby. For comparison - via BridgewaterCanal and L&L, CanalplanAC says 363 miles 263 locks, 176 hours and Clegg-chart estimates 17 days. Excellent scenery on the L&L! Fingers crossed for some rain, then - and have a good trip :-)

"Ahhha," she said, "un naturaliste." and I spent the rest of my French O-level aural exam wondering whether I should have been taking my clothes off. I wasn't very good at French. I spent the next twenty years as PeteScott, until I found my Illustrious Namesake was a significant player in the early campaigns of the iWA: extraordinary chap - I do an evening's talk about him if any waterway organisation cares to book me. (end of advert) BW map here thinks the north stops between Sheffield and Chesterfield. and the South stops at Hawkesbury. I wasn't any good at Geography, either. OK, a whole page of fun, ... back to work everybody ... IWA's boating credentials are just what we need because ... I'm probably going to regret that ... :-) ...

I've searched t'internet all afternoon for six of them together but the best I can find is this photo and it still seems to be the wrong species

I am critical of BW Management; maybe they are disproportionately influenced by the needs of hire companies, but imho the problem is that BW don't think through what their restrictions are supposed to achieve or for whom they cause inconvenience. I've linked here before. The obvious problem of 'early' restrictions is that it might rain more than predicted and all the inconvenience will have been unnecessary. The particular absurdity last year was closing the offside locks at Hillmorton 'to save water'. If the closure causes such queues that boats go somewhere else, then maybe some water might be saved, but what acually happened was the same number of boats used the flight as before, but there was less chance of finding a good road, and more lockfuls of water were used with no boat using the water. To make a more general point - BW are these days visitors to their own waterways: turn up in a van, do something, go to the next job - rather than being around the waterway all the time and understanding how it works, and how the boats using it are working. Hopefully more volunteering with C&RT will help.

The saga of boats with owners that share their use is long and complicated. I have linked here before. The compromise with licensing rules is that, for all boats, there may be one or two people registered as license holders. In this election only one of them can stand for election and each license (ie each boat) has one vote, which C&RT suggests should be by agreement of joint-license-holders where that applies. The rules are the same for IWA members as everyone else, of course. We had a discussion a few pages back of the difference between boat owners and the larger group of boaters. The C&RT thinking on the specific issue of hirers is that they are represented on the Council by the two people from the boating trade - elected by the constituency of boating traders. Not a perfect solution imho.

Well, I noticed the smiley. :-) difficult to know what issues the C&RT trustees would take advice or consultation from the Council. The Government commitment to moving EA navigations to the C&RT in 2015 seems firmer in their funding announcement last week. I have linked here before - with the question whether boaters as a whole would be happy to pay a higher licence fee in exchange for a larger cruising range (ie no extra short-term visitor licenses). And if not that - would we be keen to pay LESS on an annual license with greater restrictions on cruising range - or restrictions on which months we could move - and pay more short-term visitor licenses. I'm for the fewer-restrictions and the widest cruising range, as that is most efficient to organise and overall costs boaters less.

For my part, I would be happy to publish all our internal correspondence on the issue but an abbreviated version will convey the flavour: I decided that C&RT Council would be a job I could do, and decided to stand as soon as the outline of the Council became clear in the Autumn. We share Copperkins with some other like-minded boaters, and so share the bills and the maintenance: Rob does the license, and to stand in this election I needed to be added to BW records as our second owner, which we did in early December. There was some discussion hereabouts on whether only those with a whole year as a license holder would be able to stand - not in the end a problem - and alluding to that issue in discussion with other IWA people caused a tangle of emails on the day when I was with the NHS (no phone/email) and also the last day in the office before the Xmas break for publishing the Bulletin. So it ended up having the wrong information. Not to be outdone, BW decided that 'R and P' was a different owner to 'R' and so didn't take their direct debit - although we hadn't changed that: lots of people have tales of similar confusion with license renewal, of course - and elected boaters' representation might spur improvements in this level of service. Anyway, messup-all-round rather than conspiracy, as often it is. For comparison, here's DEFRA failing with a drinks-party in a brewery, and here the IWA almost-never-being. The confusion about what-number-to-write-on-supporter-forms was done by the same people who caused this. You couldn't make it up - but there is a long way to go before we have a best-value waterways administration; boaters, volunteers, the new C&RT all need to work hard to make it all sustainable. I'll certainly do my bit to make everyone understand what needs improving, when it does. As here and here and here New idea, that: when we know who is elected, the Council could choose. Perhaps having a boater doing that job would be a good thing, and do something to redress the outnumbering by other not-boating interests.

It's amazing how many forms are required to change a current bank account, and move a few quid between banks. A few thoughts on some comments a couple of pages back: Both NABO and IWA engage with BW (and C&RT in future) on a wide agenda - including issues between different groups of boaters, and issues of the towingpath which are more loosely connected with boating. It's by covering all these things that we get the best for boaters. I have always said that BW take maximum advantage from reminding us of the different boating interests of different groups, and we should do our best to come to a common line. I've said before I see an 80% (or even 60%) vote for IWA supported people unlikely, and whoever is elected will have an interesting job is seeking influence for elected boating people, compared with others on the Council, the Trustees and the Management. The Government thinks its contribution covers this, and is insisting on free access to the towing paths Yes, this sums up the issue - and I've read the subsequent comments and I still think IWA have thought it all through to produce a workable policy document, making it easier to attract funding for the canal than if it wasn't there. BW also have a long towing path policy which I haven't found an online version of - which has adopted similar arguments. As to the process relating to cyclists - we want cyclists on the towingpath because they are people using the canal, and welcoming them helps boaters show to the cummunities that we boat through, that we welcome visitors into our domain, the canal. Those who whizz along at vast rate are condemned by Sustrans too: the towing path owners - not always BW - need to have effective policies to deal with the problem. Needing to keep fishermen safe is a good argument for this. (But whatever we do, they're still grumpy). I agree that Council has cycling and fishing representatives who can speak for themselves; I'm not presenting their case: I'm saying that boaters need them, need the money that multi-use of towningpaths can bring in, need the support of local councils, and we should use extra money on navigation issues - of which better dredging is one.

Well, because we didn't do a pre-election between ourselves, which would have generated the criticism that we were excluding good people from the election. We have all spent at least a year with the issues of C&RT - funding, governance, whether to include EA waterways, etc and we have good experience of all the other boaters/navigation issues that arise in IWA work all the time - BW being its lovable self is usually one of the most prominent discussions at any IWA meeting. If the electorate choose any IWA candidates, they will have good people to do the job. There is certainly no IWA policy that supports all metalled-towingpath schemes; they are all different. The proposed scheme on the Rochdale summit, which has had much debate in my Region goes thus: money from not-waterway sources becomes available for the towingpath - Sustrans sometimes involved but not always - the revised towing path will use less BW resources to maintain in the future, leaving more money for dredging, for example. If we support such schemes, it's because on balance that's in the interests of the navigation - and it's the same decision from a boating perspective: what gives us the best for boats. Our Towingpath Policy is on the website here for anyone to use as a resource, and it had a lot of though put into it. For example it says "A towing path should not be designated as part of a formal cycle route unless it is at least four metres in width, including the fringe but not the hedge or boundary. The two metres nearest the waterside should be reserved for pedestrians and anglers. The cycle track should be a clearly marked area, of the towing path, in the same way as a municipal cycle-way. Navigation authorities should compile and publish accurate and consistent lists of towing paths, in their jurisdiction, that are suitable for cycling. ...Motorised cycles, due to their weight and speed, are inappropriate for use on towing paths and should be banned, except where specifically authorised for use by the employees or contractors of the navigation authority, .... These issues are never simple, but we have thought about them extensively, and we hope they command support of boaters.

I agree with others recommending L&L or the Trent. The last bit up Tinsley (actually Ickles is the last lock you work yourself) is done by BW. We met a similar length boat who wanted to moor in the Basin for the Snooker in April/May and were refused. According to JimShead you need to diagonalise for 4 inches at Thorne and 6 inches at Tinsley. Dronfield is half an hour on the bus from City Centre, and an extra twenty minutes from Ickles. Kiveton Park on the Chesterfield is next-nearest in connected-waterway terms, but public transport goes via Sheffield, which reflects the geography but would frustrate a direct-minded flying crow. Snowed here in Sheffield this afternoon. Good luck.

IWA wants cyclists, towpath walkers, anglers, canoeists, rowers, wildlife, and other interest groups to support the waterways. We are pleased to accept their money to support IWA's charitable aims: "to advocate the conservation use maintenance and development of the inland waterways ..., to advocate and promote the restoration and the maintenance in good condition of such waterways and associated craft and buildings and structures and advocate and promote their fullest use for appropriate commercial and recreational purposes. ". That's a statement of boaters' interests as well as IWA's interests imho. IWA doesn't use its energies or resources on the not-waterway interests of these other groups. For example, there are disputes between the slow and the fast on the towingpath: an analysis, some lighthearted - here: we all need cyclists to be responsible, and towingpath-owners to apply the conditions-of-use. I had a lockside discussion last year with a lockwheeling-cyclist who thought boatless-cyclists should be excluded from the towingpath. My advocacy of having to find a way of surviving together brought nods before the lock was full -but it may just have been politeness on a sunny day. Much the same line-of-thought applies to glum fishermen, large umbrellas and long poles. And here is an offline construction to meet a potential conflict of restoration and wildlife interests. If C&RT or its Council needs reminding of its primary responsibility for navigation or as a navigation authority, I'll be pleased to do it from a boating and IWA perspective, and let's not forget that IWA successfully runs the Chelmer and Blackwater Canal through the subsidiary Essex Waterways and brings the extra credibility of actually doing a difficult job with limited resources.