Victor: CaRT play down boaters contribution

Published: Sunday, 03 November 2019

'FORGETTING' the income from boaters for moorings, CaRT purposely more than halved its latest stated annual income from boaters.

Stating that boaters only paid 10% of CaRT's annual income, Jon Horsfall, Head of Customer Service Support, seemingly 'forgot' to mention that boaters also contribute with mooring fees, with Allan Richards discovering that together this amounted to over 22%!

The only deduction from this is that CaRT doesn't want to show that we boaters contribute nearly a quarter of its income.  That begs the question—was this to show that at just 10% boating was unimportant so not worthy of spending?

As Allan comments, and to which I heartily concurIt is the typical claptrap of CaRT again attempting to play down the contribution played by boating.

In is own words

Here is what Jon Horsfall stated, as widely published:

“Income from private boat licences accounted for around 10% of our annual income last year, and helps ensure that we can carry out the vast amount of work needed to keep the waterways available to boaters."

Keep the waterways available to boaters?

Not at all clear

Which brings me to the stoppage caused by the collapsed culvert on the Leeds & Liverpool that is causing some confusion.  

The notice from CaRT tells the stoppage is from Monday 21st October until Friday 15th November, then goes on to state—'We have now brought forward the winter stoppage (originally planned for January 2020) to enable the re-lining of the canal bed over the line of the culvert'.

Our enquiries brought no further response, which leaves it all very unclear.  Is the navigation open after the 15th November or has the winter stoppage been brought forward to the 16th, and thus closed until the work is completed?

I pity the boaters who have to try and make sense of such notices. CaRT really should get these ever increasing 'Cartisms' sorted and give conciseand accurateinformation.

TimeshareTime share woes

It would seem the time share market is not doing so well these days with boats—such as the one in the picture—displaying notices stating that they have time shares for sale.

Many such firms have given up the ghost for lack of takers, with those operating just a few boats being hard hit, not having the capability to weather the downturn, with Chanson Cruising and Ambition biting the dust this year.

The writing was really on the wall when the big ones such as Shakespeare at Mercia went out of business and Canaltime at Sawley left, cutting down its fleet to just a few at Market Harborough.  Though strangely, both are advertising as still operating from those bases!

That boat

Moored at the pump-out last week on Sawley Cut, we were hit a couple of times by Zion, the share boat in the picture above, but its fender saved us from any harm during its protracted attempt to moor.

I realise that for many share boat people it is their first opportunity at boating, but I just could not understand this fella, who had himself in a mess the moment he exited the marina hitting the moored boats, his 'shuffling' about leading us to believe he wanted to turn as he was all over the place, not making any sense of what he was doing.

Eventually they gave up attempting to get it to the towpath under power, the two of them leaping off the boat with a rope and dragged it to the towpath, eventually mooring.

The ridiculous thing was that as the Trent was in flood the area below the entrance was virtually devoid of boats leaving plenty of space to manoeuvrer, yet this pair had to do it amongst the moored boats.  There is a difference methinks, between being a beginner and using a little common sense...

Victor Swift