The Erewash saga should be put to bed

I have been reading the ongoing and now rather tedious debate about this, and whilst not wishing to prolong this discussion any further, writes Dave Brewin.

I have to come to CRT’s defence with your contributors' continued assertions that leaving bottom gates open can’t cause the pound above to lose water being clearly wrong.

This would only be correct if the top gates didn’t leak and we all know that nearly all of them do leak, often quite significantly. So, leaving the bottom gate open can rapidly reduce the level in the pound above, especially if the bottom gates are relatively leak free and the pound above is a short one.

My boat is moored immediately above a lock on a three mile pound and there have been many occasions where the pound has lost several inches of water overnight as a result of the bottom gates being left open so the effect on a shorter pound would be even worse.

Whether any of this has caused the recent problems on the Erewash I have no idea; it could well be a different problem that is causing it but just wanted to set the record straight and hopefully put this debate firmly to bed. There must be more interesting things to publish!