Those figures

Published: Monday, 06 February 2023

BOATERS are curious about the many figures being given out by Canal & River Trust, with our receiving queries!:

I would be curious to know how CaRT calculate they save the NHS £1.1 billion p.a. in preventative health! Asks Peter Foster.

Probably using the figures they publish for the numbers of visitors to the towpaths. In effect, a figure plucked out of the air to make them sound good!

Coming fast and furious

Regular contributor T. Lang writes:

Strange figures are coming fast and furious from Canal & River Trust these days, with our being told about the waterways saving the NHS over a billion pounds a year, that takes some believing.  How it calculated £1.1 billion is of course not told, but really we do not have to be told for it's pure rubbish.

Most likely derived from those millions of visitors to its waterways that don't exist.  At the moment my thermometer reads 0.2 centigrade, such figures often in the winter, so hardly conducive to getting those thousands per mile that we are told walk the towpaths.  There won't be many today!

Ridiculous

The stuff churned out by CaRT these days gets weirder, writes Julie Warne.  We now have to believe that the canals give us 6% of 'wellbeing'. A figure well explained by your Victor Swift today [Sunday] as crackers, to which I have but to agree.

No one can calculate 'wellbeing' as it is influenced by an unlimited number of factors, depending on each individual person. but someone or other seems to believe it is only influenced by water alone when besides it.

Just gone on to Google and told that one way or another 600 people a year drown in the UK. Not much 'wellbeing' for them.

As I child I well remember my parents often telling me not to go near water as it is dangerous.  And it is, as your pages only to often tell.

[And many more, but personal, on a similar vein—editor.]