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Annual Lockage Report 2021: waterways use recovered post-restrictions


Ray T

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CRT PRESS RELEASE

 

4th February 2022

 

ANNUAL LOCKAGE REPORT 2021: WATERWAYS USE RECOVERED POST-RESTRICTIONS

 

The Canal & River Trust has published its Annual Lockage Report for 2021 which shows how many times locks were used across the charity’s 2,000 miles of waterways. As Covid-19 restrictions lifted in the spring, most places recorded counts that were close to pre-pandemic levels.

 

The Report compares 2021’s lock use with the previous year. It details a 39.4% increase in total recorded lockage from 2020 to 2021 (across 178 comparison sites). The estimated total lockage across all the Trust’s locks (not just those with lock counters) was up from 2.65million in 2020 to 3.70million in 2021. This is slightly below the 2019 total, before the pandemic affected boating, when there were an estimated 3.96million total lockages. However, this compares a full year with just eight months as 2021 saw little traffic before May due to the extended lockdown period in the first four months of last year. In the peak summer months lockage was higher in 2021 than prior to the pandemic reflecting the surge in popularity once restrictions were lifted (Annual Lockage Report 2021, page 3). 

 

Hillmorton Locks 2&3 (twinned locks) on the Oxford Canal, which saw 8,147 lockages, an increase of 37% remained the busiest locks on the English and Welsh canal system. New Marton on the Llangollen Canal was the second busiest, with a 77% increase to 7,457 lockages. Cholmondeston on the Shropshire Union was in third (7,103), followed by Woodend on the Trent & Mersey (6,279) and Bradford-on-Avon on the Kennet & Avon (5,994).

 

There were year-to-year variations between the different regions. The year recorded the driest April since 1980 which, compounded by ongoing reservoir safety works, affected the Trust’s water resources early in the boating season, with water-saving operating times introduced on some canals in the north of the country. These measures meant that the Trust was able to ensure that water supplies were available to keep canals open over the peak summer period.

 

Volunteer lock keepers were present at 119 sites, helping boaters and playing a vital role in the Trust’s water saving efforts, recording 136,500 hours of lock keeping.

 

Adam Comerford, national hydrology manager at the Canal & River Trust, comments: “The last two years have been like no other, with the lifting of pandemic restrictions resulting in increases in lock use that are unprecedented in the 21 years of preparing this report. It goes to show that boaters, be they liveaboards, leisure boaters, or holidaymakers, were keen to get back out cruising on the water. The slow pace of boat life offers an opportunity to get away from the stress and uncertainty of the times.

 

“The monitoring of lock operations across our waterways remains an essential element in our water resources management as well as providing an insight into any changing patterns in use across the network. This year it paints a hopeful picture and shows the enduring popularity of the waterways.”

 

‘Lockage’ can be defined simply as lock usage through the filling and emptying of a lock chamber, which in turn allows the movement of water and passage of boats.  It is important to distinguish lockage from boat movements, which are the actual number of boats which travel through a lock.  The Trust separates boat movements from lockage to acknowledge that averages can be skewed by the boat: lockage ratio (in the case of a typical broad lock, the ratio can be between one and four boats per lockful of water used).

 

The report, which is now in its 21st year, can be found on the Canal & River Trust website: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/lockages

 

ENDS

 

 

Fran Read (she/her)

National press officer

I work Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays

M  07796 610 427

E  fran.read [at] canalrivertrust [dot] org.uk

Edited by magpie patrick
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The lockage at New Marton and Cholmondeston is particularly impressive as, unlike Hillmorton, they are not paired - about the same water consumption but less capacity for boat movements. Cholmondeston is also quite deep.

 

Bradford on Avon is slower to operate but can (and often does) accommodate multiple boats, so the number of boat passages will be higher than the number of lockages suggests 

 

 

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39 minutes ago, matty40s said:

What's all this about?? Is this something we all have to do nowadays?

Some organisations encourage staff to display their favoured pronoun in their signature - whilst in part the result of the transgender movement it's often useful - for example Sam is a name that could be a man or a woman, and some names are not obviously either. I list among my friends one name of Jotipal for example (the one I know is female), and I have known men named Stacey and Tracey - names given at birth. 

In the example Fran could be a male or female name - it's probably CRT policy, but in Fran's case genuinely useful too. 

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There's some odd stuff in that report!

 

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/original/45293-annual-lockage-report-2021.pdf

 

The first thing I noticed was the wide range of percentage changes on the sections of the Lancaster and the L&L where there aren't any locks.

 

The second thing I noticed was @dmr's cruising pattern! :D

 

locks-percent.png.459d25ef1dc5727a51367ea665e6afed.png

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1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

Some organisations encourage staff to display their favoured pronoun in their signature - whilst in part the result of the transgender movement it's often useful - for example Sam is a name that could be a man or a woman, and some names are not obviously either. I list among my friends one name of Jotipal for example (the one I know is female), and I have known men named Stacey and Tracey - names given at birth. 

In the example Fran could be a male or female name - it's probably CRT policy, but in Fran's case genuinely useful too. 

I have this problem in my working life where I'm not sure the gender of the person I'm writing to.  It's a more common problem for me with names which aren't associated with white British people.  So, for example, when I'm not sure whether it's Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs Kumar, I simply write:  Dear Manjit.  But that can come across as a bit over familiar!

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59 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

I have this problem in my working life where I'm not sure the gender of the person I'm writing to.  It's a more common problem for me with names which aren't associated with white British people.  So, for example, when I'm not sure whether it's Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs Kumar, I simply write:  Dear Manjit.  But that can come across as a bit over familiar!

A bigger problem is when you're replying to people where it's not clear with is their first name and which their surname (because different countries have different conventions about which comes first) -- Dear Smith comes over as ignorant, not familiar... 😞

 

Nothing is as difficult as people from the Far East adopting Western forenames though -- I'm sure people are aware of ones like River or Tiger, but I literally snorted tea out of my nose when I got an email from someone (female) in Chengdu HR called Creamy Wang... 😭

 

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1 hour ago, doratheexplorer said:

I have this problem in my working life where I'm not sure the gender of the person I'm writing to.  It's a more common problem for me with names which aren't associated with white British people.  So, for example, when I'm not sure whether it's Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs Kumar, I simply write:  Dear Manjit.  But that can come across as a bit over familiar!

 

I used to work with a Hindu gent whose generic middle name is Kumar, one meaning being Prince, so effectively you were calling her "Mrs Prince."

He used Kumar as his surname as his actual name was difficult to pronounce correctly in English. On the odd time he did use it he inevitably had to spell it out. 

I forget what the generic female Hindu name is.

 

In a Sikhism it is similar with Singh = Lion whilst Kaur = Princess or Lioness.

Edited by Ray T
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8 hours ago, matty40s said:

What's all this about?? Is this something we all have to do 

We seem to have gone, in common usage, from (Miss) or Mrs) to Ms. Which tells you something, but not all of it, and anyway, married or not would be none of your, our, business. I saw no problem with this.

Now the PCers have gone further.

 

James. him/he/me/whatever. 

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6 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

There's some odd stuff in that report!

 

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/original/45293-annual-lockage-report-2021.pdf

 

The first thing I noticed was the wide range of percentage changes on the sections of the Lancaster and the L&L where there aren't any locks.

 

The second thing I noticed was @dmr's cruising pattern! :D

 

 

 

I don't think its just us, a lot more boats have discovered the Rochdale this winter and spent some time here, but when I say a "lot" that could mean 5 or 6 😀.

But it is a sad fact that we have probably made a measurable difference to the amount of winter boat movements on a few bits of the canal here.

 

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43 minutes ago, dmr said:

it is a sad fact that we have probably made a measurable difference to the amount of winter boat movements on a few bits of the canal here.

 

Lock 48 Littleborough Lower Lock (the one above the winding hole / railway station / Red Lion) is flagged in that report as doing 89 lock cycles in 2020 and 199 cycles in 2021.  How many other boats have you seen Dave?  Every time you go to Littleborough and wind, you add two lock cycles to those figures - one down and one up.

 

I don't think it's probably, it's a definite.

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Thats not me. When we go down that way we turn in the short pound by the fabric mill (there is just enough width as long as the pound is full) rather than going right down into Littleborough, and of late we have not even done that as the empty pounds are tedious. We go no further west than Warland and then to turn do a very long reverse and two locks backwards to wind below lock 33.

I have noticed the lockage figures for Littleborough lock and they don't really make sense. I cant imagine that many boats come up from Manchester then turn and go back to Manchester. Its a leave empty lock but I don't really see how that could matter. Is there a boat hiding down there that keeps popping up to the water tap? 😀  A few of the Rochdale lockage numbers look wrong to me, I suspect dodgy instrumentation.

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