Victor asks 'what are these 'emergency works'?

TIME and time again we are told that the winter stoppage cancellations are due 'to the impact of emergency works'.

But although now nine, and some really urgent winter stoppages have been cancelled—some themselves emergencies—we are still not told why, just the repeat of 'emergency works' being the cause.

It would make it believable that it really was emergency works if some intimation was given as to what they really are.

But alas, nothing.  This intimates the original list was purely to impress the powers that be of all the work that is being done, but obviously isn't, as the continuing cancellations clearly show.

And surely, if there was a major emergency, the cancellations would be stated at once, and certainly not in the dribs and drabs that we are being fed.

With so many works cancelled, one thing is for sure—the waterways are going to be in a lot worse condition next season.

Dream sheet

One of our contributor summed this all up rather nicely, telling:

'The original ‘impressive’ list was just an uncosted/funded ‘Dream Sheet’—based solely on what was probably highly necessary but with little or no intention of being completed this winter. So have to agree that it was for ministerial/public consumption'.

I can't help but agree.

Most important

A good idea for Stephanie Horton from River Canal Rescue to point out the problems that can occur with boating in extreme weather—after all, as the company has the job of rescuing people so caught she would be well aware of the problems.

But I think she has left an important one out—that of getting a boat caught after its stern goes back under a jetty then floods as rising water traps it.  All because there was no 'spring' holding it back.  Here is a picture of the 'spring' on our own boat, holding it back from going under the jetty so keeping it safe from being trapped and sinking as the flood waters rise.

A couple of years ago two boats were so caught at Sawley Marina and sinking. Alas, I often notice many boats with no such simple safety device.

Missing

Visiting marinas, I often see the host of (often ridiculous) notices on its structures, ours included, but never a simple list of such things as safety methods, such as having a 'spring' to stop a boat going back under a jetty or tying it so it cannot rise in the floods.

Obviously, as with CaRT, and its lock cills, they would rather not point out such things as boats sinking!

Putting people out of work

A message from long serving contributor James Henry struck a chord, though as political not something we normally include.

He was referring to a photograph that has been published by CaRT of about a hundred volunteers lined up somewhere in Yorkshire, he asking how many people's jobs have they taken?

He has a point. For the fact that CaRT needs volunteer lock keepers and other volunteers doing some of the work of the discarded lengthsmen, shows they are needed.

So in actual fact the volunteers have taken their jobs.

Victor Swift