Will have to change

I REALLY don't want to be a party-pooper, but if Canal & River Trust are really sincere about 'focussing on its customers', there are things it will have to change, writes Ian Gittins.

The first is to get the canals, that the customers use, out of their run-down state, and use the money to do this that is at present wasted on non essential things, as many others have pointed out in your columns.

No independent boaters

Then it needs to get a customer or two on the council that at present boasts of not a single independent boater.

Then it needs to stop forever adding to the increasing and expensive Waterway Partnerships whose people have their own agendas, and only too often not for the benefit of the boating customers.

Come clean

Then it certainly needs to stop trying its hardest to avoid responding to such as Freedom of Information Act requests that are concerned with such as the money it wastes, but come clean, as nothing is more suspect than wanting to avoid explanations.

And the ultimate non-'focussing on its customers' is the new weapon of the Trust, taking a boater to court with a Part 8 Court Hearings, as explained by Pam Pickett, when it is not only licenced but has a mooring. With the added insult that should the boater be aware and attend, he is not allowed to speak!

If this is CaRT's new idea on 'focussing on its customers' then we really are in the Cart.