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Are the Canals going to Last?


brassedoff

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1 hour ago, X Alan W said:

That's a some what sweeping statement  there are folk of all ages  that want to work & then there are the " Tired" ones I can't comment on today's canal employees work rate  but back in the day when I delivered piles to BW gangs  the daily length of fitted piles varied quite a bit & it couldn't all have been due to the terrain some did more tea drinking /longer lunch breaks than others I get the impression that the workforce set up of C&RT comprises of a lot more chiefs than indian's with the do as I say rather than do as I do attitude + a lot of staff have had no experience of water ways

Baby Boomers are those currently aged 71 to 51, and are past their physical prime, they may be willing to do voluntary work, but they have to be organised, they are not "free" nor are folks of age 71 to 51 likely to be the best recruits for routine CRT maintenance.

I am a Baby Boomer, and can still do a few hours physical work, but not at the level I was able to do fifty years ago, I would say the majority of men and women of my age are pretty useless in that arena: neither  able nor willing to do manual work 40 hours per week. 

Edited by LadyG
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It might also be a regional thing. 

CRT had a deliberate, stated policy a few years ago of not doing any non-essential maintenance on the Northern waterways, which caused a lot of complaints up here.

Over that last few years this has altered, and there is a lot of money being spent on the L&L this year and last year.

We are seeing lots of new lock gates, paddle gear improvements, dredging, hedgelaying, brushclearing, new fencing.

I agree it would be nice to have the whole system kept pristine, but I also think that it would only stay that way if they stop the boats moving!

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21 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Baby Boomers are those currently aged 71 to 51, and are past their physical prime, they may be willing to do voluntary work, but they have to be organised, they are not "free" nor are folks of age 71 to 51 likely to be the best recruits for routine CRT maintenance.

I am a Baby Boomer, and can still do a few hours physical work, but not at the level I was able to do fifty years ago, I would say the majority of men and women of my age are pretty useless in that arena: neither  able nor willing to do manual work 40 hours per week. 

I am 82 work for a logging company servicing chainsaws & other logging Equipment cut my own firewood as house is heated by wood burning stoves& up to last year steered the maintenance tug /work boat on lock installation on the river Lot & am pleased & thankful I still can

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9 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I feel that I belong to the third group - I see a continuation of the deterioration that started 30 years ago, and, like a snow ball rolling down a hill, has become 'bigger and faster' as the years have gone by, and will continue to worsen in the longer term - unless there is a 'revolution' in both management and funding sources.

The deterioration has dramatically increased this century, with BW, admitting to, & handing over to C&RT, a backlog of repairs in excess of £200m. In 2015 (alone) an additional 680 'defects' with an estimated repair cost of £117m were rolled over from 2014.

C&RT appear to no longer publish their 'defect' figures and state the cost can only be "attributed when we get to the point at which we intend to rectify the defect".

The 2015/16 figures from C&RT show they actually only achieved rectification of 50% of that years 'safety related defects' :

In total we closed 27,015 defect notifications in 2015/16. The 2015/16 CRT Key Performance Indicator (KPI) shows we scheduled to close 5,807 high
priority customer service / safety related infrastructure defects. We completed 2,910 which is 50%.

C&RT did respond to a FoI in May 2017 re the number of defects rectified in the previous year, unfortunately they again failed to achieve their plans by a considerable margin :

The 2016/17 CRT Key Performance Indicator (KPI) shows we scheduled to close 3,744 high priority customer service / safety related infrastructure defects. We
completed 2,809 which is 75%.

And that was just 'high priority and safety' defects.

C&RT do appear to be getting better at setting KPI's as their achieved rectifications when compared to the KPI's are improving, however the actual number of rectifications per annum is falling

 

If your are of the 'seeing an overall improvement long-term' faction - what do you see happening that is going to reverse the trend ?

 

 

I am not suggesting there has been a continuous improvement over 30 or more years but that as a snapshot the condition today is better than when I first encountered canals in the 1970s. Some of this is cosmetic but the struggles of 1970/80s hire trips seem a distant memory when travelling the same canals today.

CRT was set up as a means of shifting the point of subsidy from HM Government to Joe Public and change will come when there is a political shift or the funding model of CRT is demonstrated to be inadequate (which I suspect it is). In the interim we shouldn't be surprised that CRT leadership focuses on issues other than boating. It's an unavoidable consequence of their constitution but it doesn't make their leadership bad individuals per se.

On the issue of backlog that is CRTs view of things. Every asset management organisation in the UK looking after highways, railways, bridges, public buildings etc... has a backlog you could put a value on (and one that would make CRTs look like loose change). The problem is that somewhere in the backlog is the point where the cost of rectification rises above the value of doing the works and it really isn't the job of Government or the public to fund whatever CRTs or any other quangos operatives say needs to be done. It would be very poor use of public money to do so.

Backlog in itself is a pretty poor measure since organisations like CRT will probably have lots of ways of generating work items for their work scheduling system coupled to what I suspect are fairly rudimentary risk models. What matters is the risk contained within the backlog and I would be very surprised if CRT are particular clever with this despite the fact they say their assets are managed on a risk based approach. The best maintenance processes can delineate risk in a way that leads to an ability to focus on critical risk related defects within timescales that guarantee the asset won't fail first and essentially eliminates backlog by not assigning timescales for correction of defects that are not risk critical. That's essentially the science by which you can sit in an aircraft with the real and genuine expectation that it isn't going to fall out the sky. CRTs assets by nature aren't really suited to that approach although it's not entirely impossible; but is it worth it?

Ultimately I doubt there is any ability to make a true comparison of the state if the network of 1978 versus 2018 so to a degree it's a fruitless discussion. It is the politics of now and the next few years that are key.

JP

Edited by Captain Pegg
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I also wonder what impact the emergency work such as the Rochdale / Calder & Hebble flooding had on planned maintenance.

Not just the monetary side of it, the specialist contractors and staff that actually do the work are presumably in fairly short supply.  The months and months of work they did after the floods probably had a large effect on any other scheduled work they could have been doing.

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There is another issue too tied in to labour. I know it is not as bad  in the uk, but a goodly number of under 30s have huge expections. Having worked for 35 years in mental health the evidence is for many high prevalence mood disorders, a sense of worth and purpose surpasses medication and ' therapy' . however when informed of this I have been told countless times by unqualified 'patients' that they won't get out of bed for less than $50 an hour ( £29).

thats more than I was getting as a nurse consultant.

they sure as hell ain't going to get that labouring for the crt. 

I remember when my friends went manpower service working for the dole in the 1980s on the kennet. The canal got fixed and some of them went on to have good careers in associated businesses.

back to the 80s and thatcherism then ... did I really say that must be a baby boomer.

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Someone on a recent thread of cleaning up littered towpaths suggested using labour from HM Prisons. Now this sounds an attractive pipedream offering parolees opportunities to earn good boy points by joining craftsman schemes with the CRT.  Similar to Community Orders.

How does one progress such an idea ?

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10 minutes ago, Irob said:

Someone on a recent thread of cleaning up littered towpaths suggested using labour from HM Prisons. Now this sounds an attractive pipedream offering parolees opportunities to earn good boy points by joining craftsman schemes with the CRT.  Similar to Community Orders.

How does one progress such an idea ?

First you commit a crime......

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On 06/02/2018 at 09:23, Irob said:

Someone on a recent thread of cleaning up littered towpaths suggested using labour from HM Prisons. Now this sounds an attractive pipedream offering parolees opportunities to earn good boy points by joining craftsman schemes with the CRT.  Similar to Community Orders.

How does one progress such an idea ?

This idea has been around for years. Prisoners from Birmingham and Wormwood Scubs were used in the restoration of the Southern Stratford more than 50 years ago.

Regarding community orders, some years ago I queried If BW published volunteering figures had been reduced to make early C&RT figures look better. I was told this was not the case and the BW figures were reduced because they inadvertantly included community payback man hours.

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Can't be bothered to read the whole thread but I actually look forward to the time when bureaucracy turns its back on the canals once again.

When I started boating in the early 80s it was necessary to carry a supplementary tool kit not only to maintain the boats but often to pen a lock.

The canals will probably go into decline as long as austerity exists, underfunding public projects of all kinds.

There will be an inevitable revival though...Once it is recognised that funding such projects is actually good for the economy and the wellbeing of the Nation.

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4 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

This idea has been around for years. Prisoners from Birmingham and Wormwood Scubs were used in the restoration of the Southern Stratford more than 50 years ago.

Regarding community orders, some years ago I queried If BW published volunteering figures had been reduced to make early C&RT figures look better. I was told this was not the case and the BW figures were reduced because they inadvertantly included community payback man hours.

Then the idea basically has potential benefits all round. What, for example, could happen, if a model prisoner applied for CRT volunteer clean up or restoration tasks ?  Could/should the prison system be made aware of such communtity volunteering schemes and hold hands with the organisers ?

I see a scheme in the USA where model prisoners train working and guide dogs. 

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25 minutes ago, carlt said:

Can't be bothered to read the whole thread [...]

When I started boating in the early 80s it was necessary to carry a supplementary tool kit not only to maintain the boats but often to pen a lock.

 

There are a few people posting earlier in this thread that won't believe you are still the same person!

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32 minutes ago, Irob said:

Then the idea basically has potential benefits all round. What, for example, could happen, if a model prisoner applied for CRT volunteer clean up or restoration tasks ?  Could/should the prison system be made aware of such communtity volunteering schemes and hold hands with the organisers ?

I see a scheme in the USA where model prisoners train working and guide dogs. 

The River Gipping Trust often has a prisoner working there, It is a bit of a sacrifice for the prisoner to do it so most have been very good workers.

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14 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

There are a few people posting earlier in this thread that won't believe you are still the same person!

I don't quite understand this post.

Could you elaborate?

Edited to add: I've skimmed the early part of the thread and see what you mean now.

Yes I am the same person and will happily return to the canals when this current boom is over.

Edited by carlt
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3 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

Earlier posts in the thread about boaters in the 70's who used to enjoy figuring out how to work a broken lock.

Yes I understand now...(See my edit).

I missed the 70s but started boating in the early days of the revival.

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On ‎01‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 22:23, matty40s said:

T&M . Colwich Lock no longer has a top gate walkway plank. The stretch below Colwich lock has the old wooden bank supports flapping across the cut for a length of 100's of feet. 

 

Colwich Lock is due to have the top gate walkway plank reinstated on the 22nd Feb.  I don't actually see the need for it on that gate as there is no offside top paddle and there is a bridge at the other end of the lock.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't know, pretty negative thoughts here (I agree with the comment this is a very WINTER thread!). Thankfully its sort of balanced by some quite positive comments: although economic times are tough and governments are mean and CRT is struggling, we CAN cruise more widely than ever before and STILL ENJOY some pretty lovely out-of-the-way places if you have the gumption to get to them.

Obviously nothing stays the same forever. 'Canalmania' and working canals peaked in the 1790s; the system was in near-terminal decay and threatened with in-fill in the 1950s; leisure boating perhaps peaked in the early 2010s; more liveaboards than ever are now joining the system in different types of boats. All these canal 'eras' will have had (and will have) their different problems and enticing attractions.

For those who like living on boats, or even just messing about on them, I think it pays to retain as wide a view as possible. There will always be cheap boats and expensive boats and all value of boats in between that are available for living on (or messing about on). Some canals might go into decline, and you might not be able to cruise them as you did in Rolt's time or the 70s, or 80s or 90s or whatever. But you WILL be able to cruise other canals in the future, and you WILL be able to enjoy them in comfort and style and technology (if any of these are your 'thing'), unthinkable 20, 30, 40 years ago.  I kind of like relatively cheap solar power that runs everything for 9 months a year, good insulation and a mobile communication to the cyber hive.

Also, if the entire inland waterways suddenly ground to a halt tomorrow, I'd find some OTHER way to live on a boat, perhaps in some other PLACE or in some other FORM. You know, in other types of water on other types of boats. Sure, not the same as today (or yesterday), but probably equally enjoyable.

 

 

 

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I'm in a winter mood, not least because I can't commit myself to any boating at the moment as I just came out of hospital after an operation which means I won't be fully fit until late May, assuming my recovery goes to plan.

But like Jim Batty, I do feel mostly optimistic about the future of the canals (and rivers), mainly because after decades of restoration work, growth of the leisure industry, and increasing respect for industrial heritage, they're too big to fail. CRT seem unlikely to be able to cope without continuing government subsidy after 2026, but I think they'll get it one way or another because whoever is in government then (let's not get into predicting that here, too many variables anyway) will not want to preside over the closure of great chunks of the system; a few tens of milions a year to avoid some very bad press will be very good value to them.

The current closure of the Forth and Clyde canal because Scottish Canals can't or won't repair two bridges can be seen as a test case for my theory. I'm expecting that the longer it stays shut to navigation, the more public opinion will force them or their political masters to act.

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17 minutes ago, Peter X said:

The current closure of the Forth and Clyde canal because Scottish Canals can't or won't repair two bridges can be seen as a test case for my theory. I'm expecting that the longer it stays shut to navigation, the more public opinion will force them or their political masters to act.

There is always the reverse scenario to this that the longer it remains shut, the more people find 'ways around it, accept it, or do alternative things' and the closure now becomes the 'norm.

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Without European funding (ESF, ERDF and the like) supporting all the contributing UK funders of the canals as they do now (CRT, HLF, ACE, local authorities etc), our boating costs will go up and the network will increasingly deteriorate/shrink due to lack of funding IMHO.

Central government certainly won't pay for them - they already disbanded British Waterways and shoved the canal-management system out on its ear to compete for funding with the rest of the charity sector. As they did with a lot of organisations who were forced to become charities shortly after the 2010 coalition government started pulling funding and encouraging organisations to have charitable status (to compete for European funding and a few trusts and foundations here most of whom have their books full because of it) mixed with commercial income (us). Lots of companies doing good work folded or made lots of staff redundant in the following two years because of that. It's not going to get better for CRT, boaters or the canal system

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2 hours ago, BlueStringPudding said:

Without European funding (ESF, ERDF and the like) supporting all the contributing UK funders of the canals as they do now (CRT, HLF, ACE, local authorities etc), our boating costs will go up and the network will increasingly deteriorate/shrink due to lack of funding IMHO.

Central government certainly won't pay for them - they already disbanded British Waterways and shoved the canal-management system out on its ear to compete for funding with the rest of the charity sector. As they did with a lot of organisations who were forced to become charities shortly after the 2010 coalition government started pulling funding and encouraging organisations to have charitable status (to compete for European funding and a few trusts and foundations here most of whom have their books full because of it) mixed with commercial income (us). Lots of companies doing good work folded or made lots of staff redundant in the following two years because of that. It's not going to get better for CRT, boaters or the canal system

Funding will be found in other ways just like other countries who are not part of the failing eu do already and just as we did before being part of the eu. Our waterways were underfunded for years before we entered the common market and have survived partly through eu funding but that will be replaced, there is no way the system is going to go into severe decline again anytime soon. Its got steadily better since I first moved aboard 28 years ago whilst members of the common market but when we are out of that club another way will be found.

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10 hours ago, Peter X said:

The current closure of the Forth and Clyde canal because Scottish Canals can't or won't repair two bridges can be seen as a test case for my theory. I'm expecting that the longer it stays shut to navigation, the more public opinion will force them or their political masters to act.

Unfortunately, the general public only really sit up and take notice of canals when they start to smell, look terrible, and become a forgotten but dangerous attraction to children, by which time restoration becomes a massive task.

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3 minutes ago, Waterway2go said:

Unfortunately, the general public only really sit up and take notice of canals when they start to smell, look terrible, and become a forgotten but dangerous attraction to children, by which time restoration becomes a massive task.

Did the general public ever care?  Certainly the enthusiasts did, and responded with the "Blitz Spirit" of earlier years, but the much cited man on the Clapham Omnibus probably does not know where his local canal is, or thinks it is a river.

I am actually in favour of CRT getting as many people as possible to care about the canals, even if that means we need to put up with some lycra-clad hooligans from time to time.  The more people that use the towpaths and canals, even if it is a shortcut to work, the more they don't want the rubbish filled stinking ditch many of our canals used to be.

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1 hour ago, TheBiscuits said:

Did the general public ever care?  Certainly the enthusiasts did, and responded with the "Blitz Spirit" of earlier years, but the much cited man on the Clapham Omnibus probably does not know where his local canal is, or thinks it is a river.

I am actually in favour of CRT getting as many people as possible to care about the canals, even if that means we need to put up with some lycra-clad hooligans from time to time.  The more people that use the towpaths and canals, even if it is a shortcut to work, the more they don't want the rubbish filled stinking ditch many of our canals used to be.

If the much cited man is in Clapham his nearest canal would be the Paddington Basin, but the Thames is much nearer and he'd be right to think it is a river.

If he's just on a bus going to Clapham he could be in all sorts of places in London, there are a lot of routes, so I cannot offer an answer.

If however he's in Clapham and cares deeply about closed canals, he will of course be thinking of the Camberwell Basin of the Grand Surrey Canal, abandoned in the 1940s. That's plenty of time for him to get upset about it.

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