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Call for 'safety railings' along side Manchester Canals.


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Whilst it's understandable that the father of the poor lad feels aggrieved and is demanding action to fence the canal, the petition is calling for the wrong solution. I saw the North East TV news feature last night which seemed to indicate the lad fell into the canal whilst crossing the top gate lock beam walkway. The report also showed a 'startling' example of someone walking across the bottom gates having to "hold tightly onto the rail". 

Anything short of 6ft high palisade fencing around the pubs and bars to prevent customers accessing the canal wouldn't work. The usual post and rail would fail as people would just climb through the rails to access the "short cut" across the lock. And surely there would need to be a gate/gap for boaters to access the lock. Boaters, who have no choice other than to cross those lock beams to work the gates on the off side, yet nobody is calling for bridges.

If last night's news report is correct, no amount of fencing would have changed the outcome of this most recent tragedy.

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7 minutes ago, David Mack said:

And the response is to put barriers around the top gates.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/rochdale-canal-safety-barriers-manchester-14423655

Not that there is any reason to cross the top gates - there is a footbridge across the lock tail

r00u_2.jpg

The top of Chester staircase must be the next candidate.  There is a constant stream of pedestrians over the top gates there which must add up to many hundreds a day.

George

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On 3/7/2018 at 03:03, roland elsdon said:

If you fence the canalbank of course you make rescue far harder. Over here in oz they fenced a motorway bridge because some drug addled criminal  halfwit threw his daughter off it into the yarra after a custody row . Cost the council gzillions as the mother sued. There are at least 4 other high level bridges over the same river are they fenced? Course not 

Wish they would do that to the footbridge over Ryders Green locks that leads to Asda. Might stop some of the trollies finding their way into the water. 

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1 hour ago, David Mack said:

And the response is to put barriers around the top gates.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/rochdale-canal-safety-barriers-manchester-14423655

Not that there is any reason to cross the top gates - there is a footbridge across the lock tail

If they just remove the handrail from the top gates it would stop most people using as a shortcut!

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3 hours ago, furnessvale said:

The top of Chester staircase must be the next candidate.  There is a constant stream of pedestrians over the top gates there which must add up to many hundreds a day.

George

Clearly this is where CRT get their visitor numbers from ..... take one busy lock and multiply by the number of locks in the network :cheers:

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On ‎19‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 09:06, furnessvale said:

The top of Chester staircase must be the next candidate.  There is a constant stream of pedestrians over the top gates there which must add up to many hundreds a day.

George

yup, we got some very disgruntled looks and tuts as we exited the lock due to folk having to wait a few mins

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13 hours ago, Pie Eater said:

Another young man drowned over the weekend. Immediate action is to be taken regarding fencing and some of the access points are to be blocked off.

 

Info on Granada Reports tonight. Also on website.

I wonder how many drunks fall under cars and why aren't we fencing off the roads?

 

George

2 minutes ago, Hudds Lad said:

yup, we got some very disgruntled looks and tuts as we exited the lock due to folk having to wait a few mins

Yet they can always walk to the other end of the lock where there is a footbridge!

 

George

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25 minutes ago, furnessvale said:

I wonder how many drunks fall under cars and why aren't we fencing off the roads?

 

I suppose it could be to do with chances and consequences?

 

if you are walking by the canal and overbalanced such that you step into the canal, you are in the water, whether there is a boat passing or not, and you can drown because it is difficult to get out.

 

whereas if you are on the pavement and overbalanced, you merely step onto the road, and only come to any serious harm if your step coincides with a car coming such that it hits you. Once you have stepped into the road, provided you don’t get hit by a car, you just step back onto the pavement, and carry on.

 

So the chances of overbalancing and stepping of the path may be similar, whether you are by a canal or a road, but the consequences of falling into the canal have greater chance of being serious.

 

Having said that, we can’t, and don’t, mitigate against all serious consequences.... e.g. we used to have someone with a red flag walking in front of every vehicle, but it seems to have been decided that we will accept many of the vicissitudes of life

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16 minutes ago, Jim Riley said:

Just make a concerted effort to catch The Pusher, job sorted.

In the vast majority of instance the pushers name is 'Alcohol Excess', and can be easily found as regularly residing in (amongst other places) pubs & bars in city centres, alongside waterways - he lulls the unwary into a state of relaxed happiness then leads them to the unseen dangers - lurch and its all over.

 

Yes - lets remove the Pusher from our cities.

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3 hours ago, Hudds Lad said:

yup, we got some very disgruntled looks and tuts as we exited the lock due to folk having to wait a few mins

I'm afraid my response would have been something along the lines of 'Cheer up and smile, you do know what these locks are actually for don't you?''.

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On ‎08‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 14:57, CV32 said:

I can't imagine any insurance company paying out for someone who is drunk falling into a river or canal because there are no 'idiot barriers'. People need to take responsibility for their own foolishness.

I totally agree.

However what I predict though is if the authorities fence off a bit of canal then it will be interpreted by those who blame everybody but themselves as being an admission of their being responsible for a dangerous structure. 

Then the litigious brigade will want to sue when their daft activities land them in hospital because no such fences were in place where they decided to be an arse.

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34 minutes ago, MJG said:

I'm afraid my response would have been something along the lines of 'Cheer up and smile, you do know what these locks are actually for don't you?''.

And they would all reply, in chorus, 

"yes, boats. Not Caravans, T***!" 

Edited by Jim Riley
Forgot summat.
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1 hour ago, MJG said:

I'm afraid my response would have been something along the lines of 'Cheer up and smile, you do know what these locks are actually for don't you?''.

to be fair it was around teatime and getting dark in late Feb, i was already in bother with the better half for convincing her to push on into Chester and moor near The Lock Keeper, so i wasn’t really in the mood for banter with grumpy types.

 

barriers are not the answer IMHO, put a barrier in front of a well-lubricated young male and his friends and all he’ll see is a challenge/climbing frame/platform to moon from, just gives them further to fall. the underlying problem is more the binge-drinking culture and nobody looking out for friends who’ve had several too many.

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2 hours ago, Jim Riley said:

And they would all reply, in chorus, 

"yes, boats. Not Caravans, T***!" 

What a frankly idiotic (but unsurprising) thing to say - Given they wouldn't know I have a caravan nor would be in a caravan at the time why exactly would they shout that?

 

Are you now claiming your average Chesterfield canal walker is now actually psychic.....

 

 

1 hour ago, Hudds Lad said:

to be fair it was around teatime and getting dark in late Feb, i was already in bother with the better half for convincing her to push on into Chester and moor near The Lock Keeper, so i wasn’t really in the mood for banter with grumpy types.

 

barriers are not the answer IMHO, put a barrier in front of a well-lubricated young male and his friends and all he’ll see is a challenge/climbing frame/platform to moon from, just gives them further to fall. the underlying problem is more the binge-drinking culture and nobody looking out for friends who’ve had several too many.

Indeed barriers aren't the answer at all, they have put some temp ones up and somebody still manged to fall in again, and drown again.

 

As sad as it is I think some people wont be happy until they are filled in rather than expect people to start taking responsibility for their own safety.

Edited by MJG
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1 hour ago, MJG said:

 

Are you now claiming your average Chesterfield canal walker is now actually psychic.....

Yes, especially the if they know what's going on at locks on the way into Chester. 

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