David: Let's be nice to CaRT

IT SEEMS to me that CaRT did a pretty good job in reopening Napton Flight only four days after the problem first occurred. It sounds as though it was a major failure and I know that that location is not easy to access with the sort of equipment that would have been needed.

It seems rather churlish for some to complain that hire boats were given preference once passage was possible and certainly out of order to suggest that private boaters should have been given preference, as they contribute more. Hire boaters pay a licence fee just like anyone else—in fact the fees for hire boats are greater than those for private boats.

The chances are that hire boaters have a more pressing need to get back to their base than most private boaters, especially since a late return will affect not only that hirer, but the next customer for the boat. I believe that we should all be as helpful as possible to hire boaters, since many of them are the private boaters of the future—anyone thinking of buying a boat would be daft not to try boating first.

Given the age profile of current private boaters we are going to need quite an influx of new boaters in the next few years, just to keep the numbers up and justify the government subsidy—and to provide a market for your boat when you have to retire from boating.

We often don't give CaRT enough credit for the job it does. Yes, it gets it wrong sometimes and like all bureaucracies its first reaction is to try and cover things up. But the size of the budget is not its fault and it can only work within the parameters laid down by the government. I think many correspondents have an unreasonable expectation of the behaviour of a charity. 'Charitable status' is simply a legal definition which gives an organisation certain privileges and exemptions not available to a normal commercial organisation. I don't think it necessarily implies that they have to be nice to everybody all the time, in the more general meaning of 'charity'.

200 years old system

CaRT are trying to keep a 200+ year old transport system running, available to use by the public at large. The only other organisation with a comparable task is Network Rail, who also have frequent 'stoppages' for maintenance and emergencies. It recently took it the best part of three months to repair the breach at Dawlish; any sort of derailment can close a line for week. Although Network Rail has to operate to far higher standards than CaRT, since the consequences of a failure is potentially far more dire, it too finds that its ancient infrastructure can spring surprises. We have to expect that there will be the occasional failure like Napton, Aylesbury or Wolverhampton last year, but just hope that CaRT will cure the problem as soon as feasible.

At least it's not like the 1980s when British Waterways reaction to major tunnel failures at Blisworth and Harecastle, amongst others, was simply to shrug its shoulders and say sorry, there is no money to repair them—if I remember rightly it took four years to gouge the money out of the Treasury.

Plantism?

The IWA is once again campaigning against Himalayan Balsam, organising working parties to destroy the stuff to prevent it spreading. The plant was introduced to this country in the mid 19th century and colonises river and canal banks, according to the IWA suppressing 'native' plants. The IWA does not define 'native', but I would have thought that living in a country for 150 years gave some sort of claim. Certainly any such campaign if applied to human beings would immediately be condemned as 'racist' by the PC brigade and probably lead to the arrest of the IWA people responsible.

Why do we apply different standards to plants and animals?—surely Himalayan Balsam (or the grey squirrel for that matter) is simply demonstrating evolutionary superiority over other plants—who are we to interfere in a natural process? The IWA should stick to organising litter picking and lock painting, which they do well and is very welcome.

CaRT raises Funds—or not

At the weekend I went to the Fawley Hill Steam and Vintage weekend—basically a traction engine rally which featured a large number of charity stalls which were being supported by the event. One of these stalls was a CaRT gazebo, manned by two men in blue shirts (see picture).

An enquiry elicited the information that they were not volunteers, but paid staff. Unfortunately, they had been given a site with other boat related exhibits which was away from the main area of the show.

There were very few boat exhibits and the CaRT tent did not add to the attraction of the area, especially as it had been specially imported from Wales with Glandwr Cymru displayed above Canal & River Trust. There was no display of pictures and only a picnic table with a few leaflets and some towpath guides for sale. Altogether a very poor advertisement for CaRT and I saw no-one approach the stand—which perhaps accounts for the obvious boredom of the two staff.

David Hymers