Victor tells of a fine example of Canal & River Trust's numbers

I RECKON that we all know of Canal & River Trust's propensity of exaggerating its numbers.

And in the month's 'Boater Update', better known to us boaters as the Brag Rag, it has well superseded itself, as our Keith pointed out to me, he believing that it seems it has picked them out of thin air as they just don't add up.

And they certainly don't, as you can plainly see:

It tells that Wychnor Lock on the Trent & Mersey gets used 4466 times yet the next lock just over a mile away Alrewas, only used 4166? So where are the 300 boats?

Yet further on the Trent & Mersey Colwich Lock, better known as Cow Shit Lock gets used 6965—that equals 19 plus boats a day, every day, summer and winter!

How are these figures arrived at?  There is certainly no counting mechanism, no lock keepers and certainly no one there counting!

It can only be the normal way—sheer guesswork.  As in another situation when Allan Richards proved by his use of the Freedom of Information Act, that the trust's figures are manipulated to suit!

To quote Keith—these numbers are not only ridiculous but are impossible.

Crowned No 1

Cow Shit Lock has been crowned 'number one' according to the Brag Rag, as the hardest working lock with the most use.  Yet it is obviously  stuck between two other locks with no junctions so how come these don't have the same amount of use. So more boats have disappeared. How daft is that?

Anyway, does that mean that this lock will be repaired to full working order, have its gates properly hung so that it doesn't need so much effort, and the paddles working as they should be and the rotten beam replaced? But don't hold your breath. Poor choice for number one, think I.  Our picture shows the queue caused by the problems with the lock. 

As a boater, Damian, the editor of the Brag Rag, must realise the value of these silly numbers, but perhaps, and more likely, he has been instructed to include them as they are the trust's official numbers, churned out by someone who is certainly suffering from dyscalculia.

Not the trust's responsibility

It is Rob Halliday who tells—When I was a kid 60 years ago in the village where we lived builders built an estate of open plan houses. 

People walking their dogs let them go toilet on the front gardens. One house owner got fed up and took a couple of them to court to try and get them to stop. 

The court ruling was that it is the landowners responsibility to fence his land not anybody else's to keep unwanted visitors away. I bet the trust wouldn't do it for a council house.

This of course refers to Canal & River Trust paying for a fence to keep dogs of a millionaire's land, that it is understood the trust paid for. Though obviously it should not!  A further waste of those funds, eh?  Especially as part of the fence was soon down.

At the mercy of contractors

It's a bit rough for those boaters stuck away from their mooring in this freezing weather either wanting to leave the Weaver or the Trent & Mersey but the Anderton Lift has conked again.

Those days when things were quickly sorted, before contractors arrived on the scene, seem to have long gone. 

Perhaps they are waiting for another gate to give up the ghost so they can get a Monday to Friday in.

Those Press meetings

As well as people having to suffer the lack of proper response to questions and the reading of so much propaganda at those early forums they were soon stopped, as attendance wilted. 

The Press meetings were no better, with one that really put our Thomas off. There was a nicely printed brochure on the table at each chair and then the boss man read out its exaggerated content word for word to the bored audience, as though to a class of children!

Then it was question time with them usually being brushed aside if not to its liking or turned into further propaganda.

Needless to say we attended no more and hadn't heard of any since.

Still they come

And to finish my efforts—it is now four stoppages in this first two weeks of February on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.

Riley's Swing Bridge, Kirkstall Lock' Bank Newton Bottom Lock and New Lane Swing Bridge. Now making eight so far this year.

That prompts me to believe this terribly unmaintained waterway could be the first on that hinted waterway closures...

Victor Swift—telling tales for 25 years