Lock gate failures occurring too often

YET another lock gate coming out of its cup must really show that they need attention.

North Stratford Canal is now closed to navigation as the gate on Lock 17 has come out of its cup closing the waterway.

This is now occurring far too often with four such episodes this year, Canal & River Trust even attempting to blame vandals, who certainly are not able to lift a heavy gate out of its cup.

Breaking away from mounting

It is not only gates coming out of their cups but actually breaking away from their mountings that vandals are also blamed for.

Though in one instance where vandals were blamed for 'breaking the collar' the photograph of this occurrence clearly shows the collar still on the gate—it is the gate that has broken away from its mounting, and hardly the action of vandals, as the trust would have us believe!

So little inspection

It is all the result of so little inspection of the structures and the 'wait until it breaks' policy of today, that resulted in many of the 30 stoppages during July!

And really, 250 years old structures certainly need regular inspection, that should be obvious to anyone...