If ever proof was needed...

FROM all accounts it was chaotic at Buckby Locks on the Grand Union Canal when the broken lock was finally repaired enough to allow boats through after being closed for days.

Boats were 'jockeying for position' to get through the locks, with some arguments from a couple of hirers who were desperate to get back to base, it being made worse with just one gate being used, Helen Cripps tells us.

Rotten

She told that she and her partner stayed back until the rush had diminished, with her partner taking this picture of the damaged lock that Canal & River Trust told had a broken collar. However the collar seems to be fine but the actual post is rotten and obviously failing.  But of course the Trust would not admit such lack of maintenance, for that is obviously the problem with the gate being allowed to get into such a condition.

He told us that when he bent down and felt the timber, it flaked away in his hands, so was obviously due to fail and asked:

"I just wonder how many locks on the system are in such condition and due to fail? We have been boating over 20 years and never seen so many failures as we are getting now all over the system, it is absolutely diabolical."