Weaver mismanagement

AS IT happens we currently have our boat on the Weaver so I can report on the latest restrictions at first hand, writes David Hymers.

I received CaRT's email on Tuesday, saying that they had to introduce restrictions at 3pm that day because of low levels in the Weaver. The email does not explain why this is necessary, but local information told us that if the river is more than a few inches below normal, then the Anderton Lift can't operate.

Staff knew nothing about them

The restrictions basically involve restricting lock passage to on the hour, presumably in order to get boats to bunch up and reduce the number of lockings. When we went down the lift on Wednesday morning no restrictions were mentioned and the staff did not know about them.

Subsequent conversations with lock keepers indicated that they had been given no warning and the keepers at one lock did not know what the timings were for any of the other locks.

No passage available before 1pm.

The email made no mention of the fact that Vale Royal, the top lock, is currently having some work done and no passage is available before 1 pm; the email listed passage times from 9am.

The lock keepers are seriously p****d off with CaRT management for the confusion and lack of information. One of them said that "It's just no fun coming to work any more". One wonders if the recent reorganisation of CaRT management has left things in even more chaos than usual.