Email: Annual fee beggers belief

Further to your articles in narrowboatworld, I own a trailboat namely a Wilderness Beaver. The boat lives mainly in a barn down in South Wales. when not out cruising.

My nearest canal the Neath was reopened by very keen enthusiasts last year, and there is about five miles of navigable water here. The Mon and Brec Canal is 80 miles away from home, with just over 30 miles of navigable water, and as it is not linked to the main system is only suitable for boats which 'live' on the canal or visiting trailboats.

Canal enthusiast groups are working away constantly to try to reopen stretches of mainly land-locked waterways i.e. the Stroudwater Canal where the Trailboat Rally and AGM were held this year. We then cruise the system on our holidays and always seem to have a friendly response from the majority of other canal users. The thought of having to pay for an annual licence when our boats are not on the water for possibly 48 weeks in the year beggars belief

Perhaps the CaRT think that they have enough miles of canal to maintain and would secretly wish that the canal societies trying to open up new stretches of disused canals would desist, so it can perhaps concentrate on resurfacing the towpaths instead for the cyclists and dog walkers, who incidentally do not contribute anything towards this amenity.

Eric Firth Tb Jenny Wren