Who tells CaRT about stoppages?

LOOKING at the picture of the Cherwell flooding into the Oxford Canal it is obviously not navigable, writes T Lang.

Yet though I am registered with CaRT for all the stoppages, I had not received one concerning the Oxford at Banbury.  (Now arrived!)

Who tells?

This brings to mind that someone wrote in your columns that not all stoppages are listed, that also brings to mind, who actually tells CaRT when there is a stoppage?  It seems no one had told them about the Oxford.

I was once stuck, with two another boats at that Coxhead Swing Bridge on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, and speaking to the pair on the next waiting boat asked what the situation was, to which they replied they did not know but assumed the person who had been in the first boat had reported it, having seen a fella, but who had later disappeared on a bike.

Someone would attend

So phoning the number I had for CaRT, after a bit of messing about getting the right office, I was thanked for the information that the bridge was unusable and someone would attend.

It was then I realised that there is no one that officially informs CaRT of stoppages, as of course there are no longer any people patrolling, so it must rely on us boaters reporting them, as walkers and cyclists will have no interest.  In this case it was obvious the person in the first boat had not reported the failure as the pair in the second had assumed, and who told me they had been there for a day.

Sorted very quickly

By then it was rather late in the day, but someone did appear the following morning, and obviously knew what had occurred for he had the bridge sorted quickly.

But this shows that it is a poor way to run the system if they are relying on third party information to report failures and pity the poor person who has no telephone number at hand or perhaps a hirer unaware of the system.