Breach appeal stalls

THE Canal & River Trust appeal for donations to repair a breach of the Trent & Mersey Canal at Dutton Hollow near Preston Brook has stalled, writes Allan Richards.

The appeal had raised just £14,741—less than 1% of the amount of the estimated £1.5 millions required.

Slowed

The appeal will run up to next Easter when CaRT hope to have completed the repair. However, whilst the first four weeks of the appeal raised over £12,000, donations have now slowed to a trickle.

The appeal has not been helped by CaRT previously announcing that the cost of repair would be fully met from a contingency fund set aside for the purpose of dealing with unexpected events.

Waterways Partnership

Minutes of the West Midlands Waterways Partnership meeting confirm this. They say that at CaRT's Annual Meeting, Chief Executive, Robin Evans, had specifically stated there were sufficient contingency funds to deal with the breach. However, despite this, an appeal was launched.

The Partnerships' Steve Burt, is recorded in the minutes as saying that that he felt that future appeals should not be misleading.

Link removed

Predictably, a link from CaRT's website to these minutes has been removed.

The appeal page on CaRT's website states that £1.5m is equivalent to 30 sets of lock gates, a third of CaRT's annual dredging programme or three years worth of the money that they expect to spend painting bridges.

Threat

The implied threat is obvious. Donate or CaRT will spend less on maintenance.

Indeed, the threat is more than implied. The appeal specifically states that failure to raise additional income now 'will inevitably prevent other important work being carried out this winter'.

It's an absolute nonsense of course but some will be fooled.

Little chance

Even being optimistic, it is difficult to see the breach appeal receiving donations of more than £30,000 by next Easter (just 2% of the £1.5m asked for).

£30,000 is the money that CaRT has already wasted on balloons and bunting for its launch. £30,000 is actually much less than CaRT's contribution to 'potty poetry' and other art related projects.

However, as £30,000 is roughly equivalent to Robin Evans new bonus entitlement under CaRT, perhaps the donations should be given to him for coping with a breach in CaRT's inaugural year.

After all, canal breaches are extremely rare. It says so on the appeal page!

(The picture shows the breach last week on the Grand Western Canal!)