Nothing more than tactics

I am not at all surprised that only seven boaters have put themselves forward for election to the Canal & River Trust council—the whole thing seems nothing more than tactics to show the government that we boaters are involved in the running of the Trust, that we certainly are not. writes James Henry.

All I can remember reading of the activities of those elected last time was that no-one managed to get any help from them whatsoever, in fact complaining that emails were not answered, though this of course could have been the interference of the IWA as all were its members.

Lack of independence

At least this time the IWA has learnt its lesson and not hijacked the election, that only resulted in it showing its lack of independence by wanting to go hand-in-hand with the Trust, not allowing any independent boaters to have a say, though I see one of them, Vaughan Welsh had managed to stand again.

As an aside, before the election it was easy to discover the membership of the IWA, but now I find it impossible, so it would seem it was a bad decision on its part to have absolute control of the very few members of the Trust's council, that must have rebounded in its loss of members.

But with so many others on the council that have little to do with the waterways, 'our' four are vastly outnumbered, even though we are the payers! Seems all wrong to me.