Canal Closed

[Laurence Hogg]

This communication was sent to me this afternoon from Dean Davies CRT manager West midlands:

 

Just a quick update.

Further to the incident last Friday when we were forced to close the navigation due to the partial chamber wall failure at Lock 20 on the Wolverhampton flight we have met with May Gurney and their sub-contractor, Hills, to agree a way forward.

Following the incident we have also taken our local Engineering Manager, John Ward, to site and he agrees with our suspicions that this was trigged by the act of vandalism on the flight the previous day and with our reactive actions.

To summarise our actions following this site meeting:

· May Gurney to fence off the lock today 25/6 to prevent unauthorised access to the site,

· MG/CRT to design a prop system to help retain the structure,

· Possible site start on Wednesday for installation of the prop system and removal of brick sheeting and coping stones,

· Site meeting also arranged with Heritage advisor and contractors for Wednesday to discuss the detailed repair solution and any consents required. We hope that as it is an emergency job they will not require these. However the lock is Grade II listed so we just need to make sure the conservation officer is happy.

· Following the meeting on Wednesday we should have a better idea of timescales, method and delivery mechanism,

· Emergency Environmental Appraisal submitted today,

· A Project Manager has been appointed,

· A full works information package is being prepared ready to handover to Project Manager. After Wednesday’s meeting we hope that this this can be firmed up with a formal start date for the full works agreed

· John Ward to raise an authorisation request for around £80k to cover the works,

I think that it for now but as I hear things I shall keep you updated. I’ve also copied in a photograph of the lock taken in March – which shows there wasn’t any outward signs of a problem then i.e. no cracks evident.

I will let you have some more information as I get it.

Regards - Dean

Dean Davies

Waterway Manager

West Midlands Waterway

T 01827 252001 M 07885 108308

[the barnacle]

Can anyone post a map with the location of the lock on please?

[churchward]

Can anyone post a map with the location of the lock on please?

Use the location function in Canalplan gazetter and you will find what you are looking for.

 

http://canalplan.eu/cgi-bin/gazetteer.cgi

[cotswoldsman]

Interesting question and in the current economy a real challange some personal ideas ( that have not been thought through or costed )

 

1. Outsource licensing process

2. Outsource enforcement process ( once there is clarity of what can be enforced)

3. Get companies to sponsor locks - logos not poetry to include a maintenance fund

4. Get Councils to adopt facilities that are in their area

5. CRT cafes/gift shops at most honeyspotx

6. Double cost of CC license for those that cruise less than X miles

7. Bring maintenance back in house

8. Tap EU for further heritage funding

9. Increase basic license by 50% for wide beam

10. Make licences payments into "donations" so that gift aid applied

11. charge for water

12 . Charge for all visitor moorings

13. Get planning authorities to ensure that LTM's are created for every canal side development or marina (affordable housing concept)

14. No funded towpath improvements without provision of VM's

 

just to get you going I am advocating any particular idea.

I guess you have 14 different threads there!! I think I agree with 6/7 of the above

[the barnacle]

Use the location function in Canalplan gazetter and you will find what you are looking for.

 

http://canalplan.eu/cgi-bin/gazetteer.cgi

Thank you for the link, much appreciated.

[jelunga]

I guess you have 14 different threads there!! I think I agree with 6/7 of the above

I feel item 7 is essential. Too much outsourcing leads to loss of skills and low moral.

And much longer and uncaring repairs/work.

[Nightwatch]

Having been in Contract Cleaning Management for over twenty years I have to agree with number 7 with no hesitation.

 

My ex-bosses may not agree.

 

Martyn

[PaulG]

 

I propose that, before anyone is allowed on the canals, they are gagged and tied to a chair before listening to a slide show lecture on the history and operation of the canal system...

I think that would come under the heading of "cruel and unusual punishment" - no doubt exactly the kind of thing that Parliament had in mind when they passed the Bill of Rights......

Edited June 26, 2013 by PaulG

[matty40s]

 

It is indeed but I still can't see a the procedure outined above producing a 'tidal wave' of fast flowing water in a manner or on a route likely to cause the damage shown in the photographs. Perhaps someone has witnessed this phenomenum but until this 'tidal wave' theory can be proved or witnessed....

Once

long buckby last week, as mentioned above, if I hadnt run down and opened all the paddles in the bottom lock( and thank goodness it WAS the bottom lock), the cottages would have flooded.

twice

camden locks. December 2010. The locks were opened overnight(allegedly to break the ice so that boaters stranded at kensal green could escape serial break-in attempts). Paddington pound....20 miles plus....dropped almost a foot... flooding of properties and extensive damage was caused to the towpaths.

[markgregoryuk2000]

Came across this on narrowboat world. Interesting pics

 

http://www.narrowboatworld.com/index.php/news-flash/5903-first-pictures-of-21-lock-failure

[Hawkmoth]

No one as yet has advocated armed guards and shooting of the said scroats.

I have been around that area several times and, maybe I'm unlucky, but every time there has been some sort of vandalism around there, mostly letting water out, but also mindless object throwing, boat banging or just being let off in the night. There is a safe mooring by the CART office but that's very limited.

The last but one time we were there some poor chap nearly lost his boat when the pound was emptied. It wasn't flat bottomed and tipped over alarmingly.

[RLWP]

You have been unlucky, haven't you. I have never experienced anything like that

 

Richard

[Graham Davis]

Came across this on narrowboat world. Interesting pics

 

http://www.narrowboatworld.com/index.php/news-flash/5903-first-pictures-of-21-lock-failure

 

Sorry, but those photos are the same as the ones earlier in this thread.

[nicknorman]

You have been unlucky, haven't you. I have never experienced anything like that

 

Richard

Never had any trouble in the flight, but I wouldn't moor overnight in the basin at the top, and the offside moorings below the wall would result in my dreaming about a brick being dropped from above etc (even though that latter is I'm sure perfectly safe in reality). I suspect its the tribulations of having a shiny fantastic and superb boat - one is surrounded by jealousy not only on this forum but from the similarly-minded yoof of Wolverhampton.

 

I guess that's why you don't have a problem Richard... (<ducking>!)

Edited June 26, 2013 by nicknorman

[RLWP]

No, it's just my lack of imagination. I rarely imagine anyone is going to drop a brick on me

 

Richard

[nicknorman]

No, it's just my lack of imagination. I rarely imagine anyone is going to drop a brick on me

 

Richard

Wot, even when peering up a ventilation shaft in a tunnel? - no imagination at all!

[RLWP]

I have had enough drops of water in my eye to learn not to peer up ventilation shafts

 

How do get up enough courage to go outside, Nick?

 

Richard

[alan_fincher]

Wot, even when peering up a ventilation shaft in a tunnel? - no imagination at all!

If people actually dropped bricks down tunnel ventilation shafts in large numbers, why do you never seem to ride over a large pile of them just below the shaft?

[nicknorman]

If people actually dropped bricks down tunnel ventilation shafts in large numbers, why do you never seem to ride over a large pile of them just below the shaft?

Not if they crashed through the boat roof and landed on the bed - ie they wait around all day until a boat comes past.

 

How do get up enough courage to go outside, Nick?

 

Richard

I don't, that's why I spend so much time on the forum. Using an iPad whilst hiding behind the sofa is so easy.

[alan_fincher]

Not if they crashed through the boat roof and landed on the bed - ie they wait around all day until a boat comes past.

 

I'm not sure about how many tunnels though it would actually be possible to vaguely estimate the exact point a boat is passing, or to know when to lob in said brick.

 

Certainly if you stand by the air-shafts over Blisworth and Braunston you get a more or less continually reverberating noise, with it being far from obvious the point at which a boat passes under. Also the towers over the shaft are high, so unless someone goes well equipped with a full-scale extending ladder, you can hardly get up there and peer down. (OK, I accept that other tunnels may not have (maybe) 12 to 20 foot tall chimneys over every air-shaft, but then not that many of the tunnels have air-shafts at all, in my experience.)

 

How many cases can you cite of a brick dropped down an air shaft hitting a boat? I have never heard this, ever? As for punching a hole through the roof? Well if it were steel, a dent maybe, but through? (OK, I do know you were probably not being entirely serious).

 

As you make your living from something where just the engine deciding to stop presumably puts you in considerable danger, I do wonder if you are addressing some of your personal safety concerns in quite the right direction!

[magpie patrick]

As you make your living from something where just the engine deciding to stop presumably puts you in considerable danger, I do wonder if you are addressing some of your personal safety concerns in quite the right direction!

 

But helicopters don't attract the same degree of envy as a Hudson...

[alan_fincher]

To try and take the guessing out of it, (unless Allan knows), I have emailed Stuart Mills to see if he can provide more detail on what is, and is not, included in the Investment Property income section of the bar graph used at his presentation in February.

OK, I have what I consider is a fairly clear answer from Stuart Mills about not just one of the numbers about "property" that figures in this presentation, but also further explaining some of the others. (He has agreed I can post it, and I can't fault the speed of his responses, either!...)

 

Hello Alan,

 

Thank you for your note and I am very happy to clarify this for you.

 

The figure of £35m shown in the bar charts is the gross income we earn from our investment properties and comprises, predominantly, the rents that third party tenants pay us for the occupation of our property. There are costs we incur in operating this investment estate, such as repairs, insurance, staff costs, rates, service charge expenditure etc which are taken off this figure to arrive at a net contribution which is then spent on waterway maintenance. In 2012/13, the net contribution from investment property was around £26m as shown in the chart on slide 7 (blue, red and green bars).

 

Receipts from disposal of properties (sales of capital assets) are kept separate from this £35m revenue income and are accounted for in the balance sheet of the Trust. Disposal receipts are ring-fenced in a separate bank account and only used for reinvestment in new capital assets which then generate improved revenue income for the Trust. So as per slide 11 on my presentation, we generated circa £52m from disposals over the last few years and reinvested that in other properties. The properties we sold earned income of just over £1m per annum and those we bought with the money now earn income of circa £4m per annum. This £4m of income (from rents paid by third parties) appears in the £35m of income referred to above.

 

I hope that explains your query but please do not hesitate to come back to me if there is anything else you’d like to know.

 

Kind regards

 

Stuart

 

Stuart Mills

 

Director of Property

 

Now I'm sure that some will say that there is a fair amount of "spin" going on here, but if Stuart Mills' claim is correct that they can divest themselves of properties that do not produce a large income, but use the proceeds to buy those that produce a far greater income, then I'm not sure I see what the objection is to CRT dealing in property to generate income.

 

What I'm not yet understanding is how people think that different behaviours could suddenly produce a large stack of money to carry out a large program to try and reverse the declining maintenance of the canals. Surely that can only happen if property is sold, and the proceeds just spent, rather than reinvested? Its not hard to see why that wouldn't be a great idea in the long term, is it?

[Paul C]

The fact is, they already have a vast property portfolio (lock keeper's cottages, disused workshops, offices, etc) which are available over & above the ones for their own use and if they were to simply sell it all; or let it stand idle; then neither would be desirable. Renting it out, and making an income off the capital they already have (or steward) seems sensible.

[Tuscan]

If this is true then I am impressed going from around 2% return to 8% that's a staggering good return given the current state of the property market. Puts my pathetic attempts at investment into perspective if true.

[nicknorman]

I'm not sure about how many tunnels though it would actually be possible to vaguely estimate the exact point a boat is passing, or to know when to lob in said brick.

 

Certainly if you stand by the air-shafts over Blisworth and Braunston you get a more or less continually reverberating noise, with it being far from obvious the point at which a boat passes under. Also the towers over the shaft are high, so unless someone goes well equipped with a full-scale extending ladder, you can hardly get up there and peer down. (OK, I accept that other tunnels may not have (maybe) 12 to 20 foot tall chimneys over every air-shaft, but then not that many of the tunnels have air-shafts at all, in my experience.)

How many cases can you cite of a brick dropped down an air shaft hitting a boat? I have never heard this, ever? As for punching a hole through the roof? Well if it were steel, a dent maybe, but through? (OK, I do know you were probably not being entirely serious).

Not entirely serious? Moi? I think "imagination" was mentioned somewhere, post #141? But if you shone a torch down, waited for the bow to appear, dropped the brick, surely it would land on the boat somewhere near the back?

 

As you make your living from something where just the engine deciding to stop presumably puts you in considerable danger, I do wonder if you are addressing some of your personal safety concerns in quite the right direction!

not "the engine" - there are 2 engines, I'm not stupid! Edited June 26, 2013 by nicknorman