Notes of C&RT Press Briefing 11th September 2015 at Hatton

[Theo]

RayT asked me to post this.

Nick

Personnel

Tony Hales has made the decision to step down as Chair of the Canal & River Trust. He announced the decision earlier this summer. His last duty was the 23^rd of September at the Trust’s Annual Meeting

Allan Leighton is now the chair Chair of the Trust. He joined the Board in September 2014

Vince Moran is to retire in early 2016 after 18 years service.

Ian Rogers was appointed earlier this year as head of customer services services. Ian has previously worked for Aon, Thomas Cook and American Express.

Mike Grimes has been appointed as head of boating services. He comes from BA where he was head of customer operations at Gatwick.

Financial Update

Looking back to 2014/15 there has been a 10% rise in C&RT’s income to £180m. £137m was invested by the Trust during the year on its charitable activities, up from £124m in 2013/14.

‘Charity’ Update

The Trust now has 14,500 Friends, up by nearly 5,000 since March. It now has, at the 31^st July 112 Community Adoptions. There are also thousands of children taking part in ‘Explorer’ sessions, building on last year’s record.

Operational Update - Water

The current position is good overall with few major concerns. The Oxford and the GU (north) are potentially the greatest risk, especially the Leicester section. The focus is to prolong the water availability for the remainder of the season. A long term Water Resource strategy is to be issued shortly.

Both the Lancaster (Lune) and the Montgomery Canal have been reopened following failures.

The culvert failure at Rufford has cost £500k to repair. This was due to the original culvert being made of timber under peat based soil. The scheduled programme to reopen the canal is on target for the end of this week (24^thSeptember). Arrangements were made to help individual boaters who have been caught in both this and the Lune closure.

Days lost from unplanned stoppages. control

Not in our control*

Total

Full year 2014-15

925

558

1,483

Apr-Aug 2014

389

33

422

Apr-Aug 2015

274

120

394

% change

-30%

*Includes closures to facilitate Police activities, vandalism, high water levels etc.

Planned Work / Winter stoppage programme

There will be over 170 projects this winter in the national stoppage programme:

167 lock gates are being made and will be installed, over 500 defects at locks and 34 bridges to be repaired. Nine canal re-lining projects to be executed with four embankment repairs. There are to be inspections of tunnels, locks, bridges and aqueducts, with one aqueduct being refurbished.

509 defects are to be repaired whilst on site of which 279 are high priority.

Region

Number of works

Central Shires

55

East Midlands

48

Kennet & Avon

35

London

58

Manchester & Pennine

49

North Wales & Borders

22

North-East

62

North-West

31

South Wales & Severn

68

South-East

81

West Midlands

55

Water Open Days

There are currently 17 open day events planned, at least one per waterway covering a variety of works, highlights being Diglis Lock No2, Goytre Aqueduct, Kentish Town Road Lock and the Stoke Bruerne Flight.

State of the waterways Heritage report

Over a 10 year period the heritage at risk in the Trust’s care has been reduced from 125 to 24. 85% of listed structures are in good condition or better. There were 134 vehicle strikes on bridge parapets last year. Fourteen heritage trainees have been taken on for a three year training scheme in the years 2014/15. Forty volunteers have given over 1,500 hours.

Council Elections

There are to be posts for four private boaters and two business boating representatives, two new groups are to be representedin the elections:- friends and volunteers.

Time table; 11^th September – nominations open; 14^th October - nominations close; 13^th November – voting opens; 11^th December – voting closes and on the 14^th December the new members will be announced.

Winter moorings

A 180 sites of fixed location winter moorings across the country have been announced. The selection of sites will be near facilities as well as quiet spots. Sites will be created where boaters moored last year. The winter mooring will be charged at ’per metre, per month’ rate. No general towpath permits will be issued following the pilot scheme. Winter moorings will be on offer for four months November to February.

NAG member appointments

The group has been increased from 5 to 12 members with increased representation from Continuous Cruisers, with members from business boating, charity and commercial activities.

New Members: Dianne Warner, Will McCallum, Gren Meersham, Sam Worrall, Dave Williams, Mark Tizard, lee Wilshire and Alison Tuck.

Boater Owners’ Attitude Tracker

Three cycles of survey were taken in 2014 involving 1,900 boaters:

• 81% have a favourable or neutral impression of the Trust

• 58% trust CRT to look after the waterways (21% disagreed)

• 50% agreed the Trust value the views of boaters (28% disagreed)

• 35% agreed that they felt respected by the Trust (26% disagreed)

• Improvement over year with the proportion feeling respected rising from 24% in Mar 2014 to 35% in Dec 2014

• Growing levels of familiarity: in Dec 2014, 44% knew “a fair amount” or more about the Trust

• Contact with the Trust has a positive effect (emails and staff)

• New major annual survey of boaters is planned for this autumn

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Please note, I will not enter into any conversation with regards to the content of these notes.

RayT