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Is anyone maintaining the canals?


JRT

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2 minutes ago, JRT said:

So, what do I pay my CRT licence for? It’s clearly not so they can maintain canals so they are fit for the purposes of boating!

 

It's to allow you to keep your boat on CRT water, IIRC. 

 

SO no, paying your licence doesn't grant you any rights to any particular standard of maintenance of any particular waterway.

 

(Someone less polite that me might say "get over yourself", but not me.) 

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10 minutes ago, JRT said:

I’ve just returned from a trip up the Leicester line and back and I’m left wondering if anyone is actually maintaining the canal these days!?

In places calling an overgrown ditch a navigable canal is a huge stretch of imagination. It would also seem that pounds with enough water in to navigate a narrowboat through are quite a novelty. One near Aylestone Fields was only about 18” deep. Some lock paddles required the strength of cart horse to shift and in one place a poor narrowboat was hung up on some sort of underwater obstacle and could not be freed even with a tow from another boat. (It took about an hour to refloat it using some dark arts I believe) Yes, there were lots of nice blue CRT signs all over the place informing us of this and that and what a wonderful resource the waterways are but these were mostly about as much use as an ashtray on my motorbike. Oh, and I won’t even mention the very lengthy waits at the Foxton and Watford lock flights.

So, what do I pay my CRT licence for? It’s clearly not so they can maintain canals so they are fit for the purposes of boating!

 

 

PS. Would the m%ron who is moored very close to the water point at Norton junction please move your boat. Your immensely inconsiderate mooring is causing a lot of inconvenience and means that those seeking water have to have the navigational skills of Magellan to get anywhere near the tap.

You mirror my experience of that picturesque ditch.  

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Most of the non tidal locks on the River Trent are operating on one paddle or other defects with C&rt not authorising any work unless there is a complete failure resulting in a  stoppage. 

It is not right to take our money for license fees  and do nothing in return.

Feels close to the river becoming no longer  navigable.

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However.....

When we came up Hillmorton it was good to see that all the paired locks are now fully functional, and good volly lockies too.

 

I have noticed that when a paddle is broken on a high profile lock (one that is visited by the public) CRT put a sort of huge yellow plastic sack over it to draw attention to the fact that they might be mending it. Elsewhere its just the yellow and black tape, or nothing at all.

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40 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Most people on this forum appear to have voted, several times, for a type of government that is committed to low taxes and a small state. As a result, the once nationalised waterways have in effect been privatised and government support is diminishing every year with the aim of getting it to zero (unlikely). There is no profit, not even a social profit, in maintaining navigation for a few well off individuals so they can have a couple of weeks playing on a boat.

There is a social argument for recreational use for fifty times the number of runners, walkers, fishermen and a green argument for maintaining it for cyclists.

You get what you pay for, you've got your boat, you've obviously managed to navigate the Leicester chunk, even if you whinge about it. Bits of the system are three hundred years old. Let's see what state you're in after that time...

 

I don't fully agree with you here. I doubt that labour would do any better, and it was pretty bad when it was nationalised as BW.

 

Looking around me I really don't see a majority of well off people, there are a fair few but then there are lots of not too affluent liveaboards and a lot of hirers are working class, I have often heard it said that the canals are the only place were a typical working man can be the captain of his own ship.

There are a lot of almost brand new shiney boats about but it is peak boating season, and they are still very much in the minority.

In fact if there were more posh people the canals hey would likely be a lot better funded.

......I have a plan, if grouse shooting has to stop what about getting all the toffs out onto the cut, glass of wine in one hand and shooting the mallards with the other 😀 (and paying £1000/day)

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19 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

 

I have noticed that when a paddle is broken on a high profile lock (one that is visited by the public) CRT put a sort of huge yellow plastic sack over it to draw attention to the fact that they might be mending it. Elsewhere its just the yellow and black tape, or nothing at all.

I raise you posh new tape over traditional red and white...

20210814_192302.jpg

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17 minutes ago, dmr said:

.....I have a plan, if grouse shooting has to stop what about getting all the toffs out onto the cut, glass of wine in one hand and shooting the mallards with the other 😀 (and paying £1000/day)

 

Make that Canada Geese and you might be on to something :D 

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1 hour ago, dmr said:

I have noticed that when a paddle is broken on a high profile lock (one that is visited by the public) CRT put a sort of huge yellow plastic sack over it to draw attention to the fact that they might be mending it. Elsewhere its just the yellow and black tape, or nothing at all.

 

I've noticed these yellow CaRT aware sacks too.

 

I'm tempted to write THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT underneath.

 

😁

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1 hour ago, dmr said:

 

I don't fully agree with you here. I doubt that labour would do any better, and it was pretty bad when it was nationalised as BW.

 

 

Whoever maintains the network, they need enough money to do it. At present, CRT doesn't, because the financial model is bollocks.

 

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8 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Whoever maintains the network, they need enough money to do it. At present, CRT doesn't, because the financial model is bollocks.

 

 

Boating is incredible popular just now, Braunston was gridlocked last week, and the boat builders are turning out new boats like crazy. Maybe if CRT took boating a bit more seriously they could raise a bit of income from it, maybe they should not have sold off BWML or be closing down their online moorings???

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Latest new shiny blue signs seen today, while cycling the towpath, "cyclists please dismount and walk" . Grrrr! One was at a fairly steep cobbled towpath descent at a lock tail going immediately under a bridge, t'other where a gate beam end is within 2 ft of a fence. I've competently cycled through both "obstacles" for years often fully loaded, sometimes pulling a trailer full of shopping.  Meanwhile there are paddles to be fixed...  Get a grip CRT.

Edited by Jim Riley
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I think there is considerable scope to raise the license fee substantially. Adding about £1k to the license for every boat would raise £35m, some of which could be spent on stuff like cutting back some trees.

 

I'd rather they used it to buy some water though. I drove 100 miles up from Hampshire tonight planning on a couple of hours of quiet evening cruising, only to find the Marston Doldrums locks in front of me closed on arrival here at 6pm, as a "water saving" measure. I'm not entirely sure how making me wait until 8am tomorrow to transit the locks saves any water.

 

 

 

 

8 minutes ago, Jim Riley said:

Latest new shiny blue signs seen today, while cycling the towpath, "cyclists please dismount and walk" . Grrrr! One was at a fairly steep cobbled towpath descent at a lock tail going immediately under a bridge, t'other where a gate beam end is within 2 ft of a fence. I've competently cycled through both "obstacles" for years often fully loaded, sometimes pulling a trailer full of shopping.  Meanwhile there are paddles to be fixed...  Get a grip CRT.

 

And the most pointless Blue Signs I've seen so far are those saying "Winding Hole Ahead". Anyone cruising to the winding 'ole is gonna already know it is there, Shirley.

 

AA38DF5F-1EDC-4A0B-8BE4-B4D02CDA4A83_1_105_c.jpeg.e47d97b648a6064434845cd2a3061e83.jpeg

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2 hours ago, dmr said:

I have noticed that when a paddle is broken on a high profile lock (one that is visited by the public) CRT put a sort of huge yellow plastic sack over it to draw attention to the fact that they might be mending it.

 

Like this:

 

802A551B-5D26-42D2-8822-12849843E5CC_1_105_c.jpeg.e086012ad5a1eeb3ba1b7ee0153607f1.jpeg

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24 minutes ago, MtB said:

I think there is considerable scope to raise the license fee substantially. Adding about £1k to the license for every boat would raise £35m, some of which could be spent on stuff like cutting back some trees.

 

I'd rather they used it to buy some water though. I drove 100 miles up from Hampshire tonight planning on a couple of hours of quiet evening cruising, only to find the Marston Doldrums locks in front of me closed on arrival here at 6pm, as a "water saving" measure. I'm not entirely sure how making me wait until 8am tomorrow to transit the locks saves any water.

 

 

 

 

 

And the most pointless Blue Signs I've seen so far are those saying "Winding Hole Ahead". Anyone cruising to the winding 'ole is gonna already know it is there, Shirley.

 

AA38DF5F-1EDC-4A0B-8BE4-B4D02CDA4A83_1_105_c.jpeg.e47d97b648a6064434845cd2a3061e83.jpeg

 

Good to see a few signs now say winding hole rather than winding point as most do. I half remember one at Devizes saying turning place for boats.

 

In general CRT look to be finding any excuse for erecting yet another blue sign, but warning other boaters, especially hire boaters, of an approaching winding hole is not such  a bad idea as they might just meet a boat right across the canal.

In fact...the winding hole a little up from Clattercote wharf is next to a bridge on a sharp bend. We had a trial wind there today in case we need it later in the week and did indeed confuse a hire boat by half winding then unwinding. Its very silted but just doable in a 70 footer.

Did you realise that heading up from Cropredy its here or nowhere? Next chance is Fenny Marina (where I think it says no winding), then its right over the summit and down Napton locks to the engine arm.

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1 hour ago, MtB said:

I'm not entirely sure how making me wait until 8am tomorrow to transit the locks saves any water.

 

Less boaters doing locks after going to the pub really does help, if only because they are less likely to leave paddles open.  There are a lot of numpties out there, and most of them aren't on hire boats!

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8 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Less boaters doing locks after going to the pub really does help, if only because they are less likely to leave paddles open.  There are a lot of numpties out there, and most of them aren't on hire boats!

 

Locking the flight at dusk would make more sense then. That way the after-pub idiots are stopped but us sober evening-cruisers do not have our evenings wasted.

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