Victor discovers it gets worse

FROM the comments passed on to me boaters are appalled to read the list of 'chiefs' at Canal & River Trust.

But would you believe, it gets worse? For that list of 52 CaRT vacancies on Linkedin includes 18 property managers! But that must be a mistake or duplication surely, it can't possibly need 18 more property managers.

Then there are the lawyers, the number of which I miscounted!

Not four, but six!—a Senior Property Lawyer, Senior Environmental Lawyer, Senior Employment Lawyer, Two Senior Solicitor Advocates and a Commercial Lawyer.  Yes, six in all, but obviously not enough with an advertised vacancy for a Planning & Environmental Lawyer in the Linkedin list!

Why on earth do we need all those lawyers?

For what purpose?

I am not going to apologies for 'flogging' this matter, for such a number of 'chiefs' to me seem not just extravagant but ludicrous, piling on the costs—and for what purpose?

What for instance do any of the following managers and the head actually do?

National Insight & Evidence Team Manager

Head of Supporter & Outcomes Development

Strategic Transformation Team Manager

Transformation & Change Manager

People Change Manager

Information Governance Manager

I'm completely in the dark as to their purpose, as the titles are not too forthcoming. But their cost certainly is.

Getting your money back

I reckon the law is clear—if you pay for a service but don't get it, whatever it is, then that's a failure of contract.

And your money should be winging its way back to you.

So how about those boaters who have been stuck since April above the Bosley and Marple flights? They have paid a licence to cruise around 2,000 miles of waterways but are stuck with just 22 miles, They should surely be getting rebates on their licences, their being stopped from cruising the remaining 1,978.

Conked again

The Anderton Boat Lift is called by the trust as one of the seven wonders of the waterways, but alas, the only wonder is whether it is working—and we are told it won't be for the rest of this year.  Some wonder!

It was Jeff Bates who repeated a comment from someone at the lift that 'the whole thing is a disaster and it should never have been reopened as it is breaking down with ever increasing regularity and boaters would be better to keep away. Words to that effect'. He certainly has something there, for it is breaking down with increasing regularity.

You have often been told how it conked on its first trip with the Press and has conked regularly ever since, and now for the rest of the year.

To my mind the people who put it back together knew what they were doing, sticking to the plans, but when it was all together the people who then slapped on the safety devices obviously did not know what they were doing, otherwise that top gate would have opened on that first trip instead of remaining steadfastly closed.

And other such failures one after another.  A great pity they did not leave it re-built as it was—after all it served very well for over 100 years...

Victor Swift