The chance for CaRT to prove its 'wellbeing' this weekend

DURING late March warm sunny weather brought out people in their thousands to throng the towpaths, writes Tom Crossley.

Consequently, their limited width and many brushing past each other obviously helped in spreading the highly contagious coronavirus.

Safeguard the public and NHS

Yet the government time and time again demanded that such public gatherings were stopped to both safeguard the public and the strain on the NHS.  Many of course thus closed their parks and paths to help the government in its urge to constrict the spread of the all too often fatal disease, with one notable exception—Canal & River Trust, the proclaimed 'wellbeing' charity that kept its towpaths open to all.

Most of you will remember the lady who counted 3,700 people passing her door by the Bathampton towpath on the warm sunny day late in March.  How many of those people contracted the disease and are possibly now dying?

Not very 'wellbeing'

Not very 'wellbeing' is it?  At least one council had more sense and insisted that the towpath in Bradford on Avon—that had similar hoards—be closed as the government requires.  The result was the positioning of the notice as shown, but no actual barrier, the Trust maintaining this is impossible.

Yet during the Foot & Mouth epidemic, the towpaths were closed with barriers preventing people using them, yet at the same time allowing boaters to move and moor at designated locations.  Why can't it be done now?  Or is the life of cows more important to the Trust than the life of humans?

Possible to close the towpaths

It has been pointed out that there is a difference between the two, one spreading the disease by foot to cattle and the coronavirus by either breath or touching spreading coronavirus to people.  But as others have pointed out—correctly—that is not the point, the point is that it shows that it is possible to close the towpaths.

This weekend, again, we will have warm sunny weather and the possibility of again hoards of unthinking and uncaring people thronging the towpaths where it is totally impossible to keep two metres apart,  thus the real possibility of further spreading this fatal disease.

Will it show its 'wellbeing'

Or will Canal & River Trust actually show it is a 'wellbeing' charity and prevent it, even if only by erecting notices telling the towpaths are closed, as the government requires.

Or will it leave them wide open to all, spreading the virus, thus showing that its 'wellbeing' is nothing more than one colossal sham?