Dutton breach to cost £2.1m

FOLLOWING the revelation that Canal & River Trust has removed a £1.5m breach appeal from the main donation page of its website (Breach appeal scrapped—28/1/2013), the estimated cost of fixing the breach has risen from £1.5m to £2.1m, writes Allan Richards.

This is from updated information provided, but the total donated to date being just £19,527.

Contingency fund

The cost of repairing the breach of the Trent & Mersey Canal at Dutton Hollow, near Preston Brook, was to have been met by an existing £2m contingency fund but CaRT subsequently launched a high profile appeal to raise the estimated £1.5m (now £2.1m) required by Easter 2013 claiming that contingency funds had already been allocated elsewhere.

Less that 1%

The revised figures mean that the public has donated less than 1% of the amount needed to repair the breach.

In a previous article in narrowboatworld the amount donated was put into context by comparing it with money that is spent elsewhere. The comparisons still hold for CaRT's revised figure.

Money wasted

The amount donated is still significantly less than the amount spent on 29,460 balloons and 48,750 metres of bunting for CaRT's launch—that were never used.

And it is still less than 20% of the amount that CaRT is spending on 'potty poetry' and other art projects.

It remains to be seen if CaRT reinstates the appeal to the main donation page of its website.