Richard at Leicester

THIS time Richard Parry, Chief Executive of Canal & River Trust is answering questions at a lively Open Meeting at Leicester, which will be the last in the series.

Canals are deteriorating

1. I've lived on the water for 20 years. A lot of boaters believe these meetings are just PR to smooth over the waters. The true reason that waterways are in a state is due to mismanagement rather than a lack of money. If there's a lack of money then it should not be going into arts and cycling, it should be going into improving things for boaters. The canals are deteriorating.

Some areas have real problems with cyclists, if you get hit by one you'll get hurt or killed and you shouldn't be putting money into creating racetracks for cyclists.

Also on the subject of continuous cruisers—if you have work or schools you can't continuously cruise—why is that question not asked when you apply for a licence?

I'm sorry but I don't agree on your point that the waterways are deteriorating. More people tell me it's better than not, genuinely. We have a very thorough inspection regime and the information we get from that tells us that, on average, assets are in better condition now than they were five or ten years ago. Of course that's not always the measure that tells you how easy it is to use, but it certainly tells us a lot about the safety and underlying state of the network. That's where a lot of our money is spent, on the things you depend upon but that don't contribute to your experience of the canal and that you can't see. I'm not saying things are perfect, but I don't agree that the waterways are deteriorating.

On the issue of cycling we've just concluded a consultation into towpath use and we've had over 2000 responses. The idea of a permit often gets raised but I don't support that suggestion as it's almost impossible to enforce. We are trying to educate people, but we should also be better on signage. We need to be very clear cyclists on respecting other users and make clear that the slowest within the hierarchy of users has priority.

We very rarely spend our money on improving towpaths, as I said earlier our priority has to be on ensuring the safety and integrity of the waterways. Where towpath improvements do take place they are almost always through working with partners and third party funding.

We also believe that these improvements benefit everyone and that they're not just for cyclists. Very often while the works are taking place we can include improvements to wash walls which will benefit boaters. The new surfaces will also improve access for all users, especially people in wheelchairs and those with buggies. We're clear though that we need to push for surfaces that don't promote head-down speed and also consider other measures where appropriate.

Before we go on to mooring and boat movement issues, any more views on towpaths and cycling?

Rippled path surface

2. We need a rippled path surface which would help us to hear cyclists as they approached. Tarmac is too fast and it's also slippery in frost which makes it dangerous for cyclists themselves.

We don't put smooth tarmac down where we have a choice over it. We've recently secured funds to work on towpaths in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and on the Caldon Canal and those surfaces are not black tarmac. There are places where we don't own the towpath and local authorities have decided on a hard surface, but we prefer a broken, textured surface and, where we can, we make that point very clearly.

3. It's not just cyclists, I live at Zouch and was nearly mowed down by two motocross bikes running riot on the towpath. The problem is that you have no-one on the ground, no lock keepers or lengthsmen to stop people.

That behaviour is unlawful, we should be clear about that, and it should be reported to the Police.

We do put our people on the ground and we're recruiting volunteers across the country - we have over 400 volunteer lock keepers which we didn't have three-four years and we're looking at towpath rangers in London and elsewhere—paid lengthsmen aren't affordable now. We have to look at a different model as the economics don't support what was done 100 years ago; no organisation could justify the cost. However, I agree that we need to try to be more visible, and volunteers are helping with that. We need also local communities to help and there are many places where residents are taking the initiative, adopting their local canal and helping to stop people from spoiling it through litter, fly-tipping and anti-social behaviour. It's through that cooperation that we can gradually make the system a better place to be. Anti-social behaviour is a wider social problem and we have a huge network running through major urban, formerly industrial areas, so it's not surprising that we get our share of this problem too. There will always be small numbers of people who will behave badly but if we all work together then I genuinely think we can make our waterways a better place.

On an hiding to nothing

4. An official in a uniform has more weight, at the moment we're on a hiding to nothing.

I genuinely believe that volunteering is an opportunity for people to make a difference, and of course they will be in uniform. We have people working with us from a range of different backgrounds. We're doing more with young people, actively creating youth social activities which helps with engagement and can help to reduce anti-social behaviour. I don't share the scepticism, I think we all can gradually make the waterways a better place.

5. My son is a cyclist in London and I'd rather he cycled on the towpath than the road. We have to find a way of sharing our spaces. That's why it comes back to education and people slowing down.

Thank you, I agree, we've done a lot in London on this, working with TFL, and we have had some success but there's more to do. On the wider towpath issue I visited a project in central London last week where a local school has got involved with their local canal, helping to plant a community garden and just making the towpath a nicer place to be, and this is being respected by everyone, cyclists included. It's a great story of the difference that people can make.

It will take time but things will only get better if we try and tackle these issues through education and engagement because they won't go away otherwise.

A licence

6. Most of these cyclists belong to a club, why can't they have a licence which they pay for and which includes some kind of fine if they break the rules.

Yes we can work with cycling clubs and associations but I honestly think permits are the wrong solution for a number of reasons: firstly it would discourage families who want to come and enjoy the waterways; secondly it can promote the feeling that ‘I've bought a permit I can do what I like'; and, thirdly, how do you expect me to enforce it? Many of these cyclists are only on the towpath for five minutes at a time. I don't think it would solve the problem and we would be chasing our tails trying to police something I don't have the resources to police.

I do acknowledge there is a serious problem, and we must continue to try to deal with it, mainly through education and specific physical measures where appropriate, but it will take some time.

White line

7. My local park has a white line down the middle of the paths to keep walkers and cyclists apart, could this be done on towpaths?

I'm slightly sceptical that people really pay attention to those lines and, in any case I'm not sure it would work on our towpaths, particularly where sections are narrow, as you say. If it happens in some places where it can work I'm not ruling it out, I appreciate we have to be open to trying things to try to address this.

8. Going back to London, I've complained about stuff in the water between Little Venice and Bulls Bridge but didn't get any response. It wasn't until pictures got in the local paper that you were interested.

I thank you for contacting us but I can assure you that we don't just deal with things because they are in the local paper. In most cases, where there is something in the water we are already aware of it but are not prioritising it if it isn't causing a hazard. We have to target our effort on the things that make the most difference and if something is in the way of navigation then we'll deal with it but we can't spend our time tackling everything. As you know we have lots of help from volunteers in dragging items from the canal, but I fear it will be a problem that never goes away.

Match fishing

9. You seem to be focussed on creating as many income streams as possible and you've encouraged a local angling club to use the canal for match fishing twice a week; every 20 yards on the canal which I think is over the top. You may have made a lot of money out of it but we as residents and boaters are suffering.

I don't think we will be making a lot of money out of it, though yes a tiny amount. I understand what you're saying but activities like this bring new people to the waterways who, in turn, will help to encourage others to come which will increase that level of local engagement and help to reduce problems such as anti-social behaviour.

So it's not about income it's about engagement and people having a relationship with their local waterway. Our canals are far better ecologically than they've ever been, which is a fantastic thing, so the fish-stocks aren't at risk of being damaged. Fishing does have an important role to play on the waterways and there's actually less of it taking place than there was in the past so, while we're looking to increase engagement in this way, we're not doing it over-intensively.

Volunteer recruitment

10. Please can you tell me how the recruitment of volunteers is going?

We think it's going really well. Volunteers contributed over 50,000 days last year which beat our target and we're working with more and more people every year. The range of roles is growing also. We have over 400 volunteer lock keepers and Explorers education volunteers—we have 150 and rising—but we also have more volunteers in professional functions such as planning, web development and our environment teams.As well as the added output this provides, enabling us to do more things, its also helping us to change the way we think as an organisation. If we're trying to get things done we now think how can we mobilise, recognise and respect volunteers. We've also had volunteers doing more challenging work; volunteers did a great job recently helping to repair a lock wall on the Stratford flight that we didn't have the resource to do otherwise. Waterways have a tremendous tradition of volunteering of course, every restoration over the past 50 years has been based on the effort of volunteers.

Community adoptions are the next step, where we work with established local groups so that they can organise things themselves and do things on their local waterway that are the priority for them. We've nearly 60 of those in place now. So all in all we're very positive about that progress.

The reason I asked is that I wrote in to volunteer before Christmas and I haven't heard anything since.

I'm very sorry about that. The process may have been stretched at that time but I am really sorry. Our research says that 87% of our volunteers say they're satisfied with the experience of volunteering with us so I think there is evidence that we're getting it mostly right but again I'm sorry for that. Please speak to one of the team at the end.

Least friendly canal city

11. Leicester is the least canal friendly city there is—there are no facilities, limited moorings, nowhere safe to stay. Boaters make an extra effort to go through the city all in one go.

What can CaRT do to improve the situation?

This is where our waterway partnerships come in, they are all about working with local authorities and other local organisations to develop our make things better. It needs more of an effort from boaters, the local IWA are pushing for these things but they need more members.

I'm a boater and a member of both the IWA and the local Civic society. Castle Gardens is a fantastic mooring as you have the whole park to yourself at night but there's no waterpoint.

The City Mayor is a keen boater and there is a city waterway strategy but more needs to happen, it needs more pressure. I started a campaign to have another mooring down from Castle Gardens but no-one grasps the nettle, I brought it up at the waterway strategy meeting and the Mayor passed it onto CaRT and it goes round in circles. People need to come together.

It does seem that we need to try and do more. There are no blank cheques but we need to look at inexpensive ways of doing some of these things. Let's agree that we should try and find some ‘footholds' we can deliver to move things forward. The key is that we've got to make it relevant and convince the city that this is important. We need to develop our evidence that shows how the waterway will benefit communities and we're working on that.

SM: The local Partnership is focussing on moorings on the Soar. We may not own the land but our experience elsewhere has shown that, working with the partnership, we can make relationships with these organisations. It's not going to happen overnight but it's not been forgotten about.

As well as a lack of facilities North Lock, just outside, has been out for five years.

DF: North Lock is on the list to be done this winter.

Help roving traders

12. Can CaRT help the roving trader? I have 35 weeks a year to trade but I'm told I can only stay two days at a time so I'm travelling longer than I'm trading.

I think—and from conversations I have had with traders—we do a lot to help, but are we going to give you freedom to stay on moorings longer than we do anyone else? I know we've compromised in a few places to give traders more time without inconveniencing other boaters but we need to strike a balance so we're being fair and giving everyone opportunity to use the space. There are often other visitor moorings available for longer than 48 hours that may not be prime moorings but are still quite accessible.

The problem is that I can't put signs up showing people where I am except for immediately outside my boat and I don't need it there.

That might be something we can look that. Roving traders bring an added life to the water so we want to work with you to support you but we do need to balance it with the needs of other boaters. I don't want one rule for one group and another for everyone else.

Interactive guides

13. The interactive guides you've now got are horrible. The previous PDFs could be printed and were fine but the interactive ones are rubbish. I don't know why you thought they needed updating.

That's not the first time I've heard that actually and we need to fix it. I think we may benefit by bringing a boating group together to look at it so they can be made better for your use. We've also done a digital appraisal with some website advisors and you'll be pleased to know that has also pointed out that the maps/interactive guides need improving. I can't promise how quickly we can fix it but we'll certainly look at it.

Could you cooperate with Canalplan instead of reinventing the wheel?

I agree with the sentiment and I'm all for making our raw information available for others to turn into useful maps, guides or information but we have to be careful that we don't favour one supplier over another as we're so powerful in the market. But that shouldn't be an obstacle to finding the right way to helping people get the best possible information.

Linear moorings

14. You have a policy of taking away one linear mooring for every ten berths created in new marinas. I moor on the Coventry Canal and six boats have gone in the last six months and they're replaced by people not paying and it's not fair. Are you going to keep this policy, do you want us all in marinas?

This is a long standing formula that goes back to around 2005. At that time there was a real shortage of berths available so we, with the industry, felt we needed to do something to generate interest in creating marinas. A New Marinas Unit was formed and one thing they had to get across to potential developers was that they weren't going to be in competition with our online moorings. So we agreed to remove 1 for every 10 marina berths provided. We still provide over 3,000 long term moorings.

You take them away from the wrong place.

We are reviewing our overall approach to online moorings and I'm awaiting findings on that as we need to decide on the best overall balance of moorings alternatives for customers. We have a real mix of locations where we offer long term moorings that has grown up over time rather than a clear plan, and it doesn't really make sense to customers so we need to look at it overall. I hope you can appreciate that we've often taken berths out where we have vacancies as it's the easiest way of doing it rather than displace people from their mooring.

Recycling

15. Do you have any plans for introducing recycling facilities?

Since October we now provide recycling. However, it's not always obvious as it's sorted away from the waste collection site because there isn't space for lots of different bins at our sites. In the new contract—in place for around six months now—the contractor has clear targets on the percentage of waste that gets recycled and avoids landfill. I accept we need to make this more clear to boaters to tell them that this is being delivered now and giving them feedback on how we are doing against our targets. We will arrange some communication; we had wanted to get the contract up and running and working first.

HS2

16. Looking to the future, where are we with consultation on HS2, particularly Fradley?

We've now submitted our Petition to the Bill Committee following our earlier consultation responses.

Our national policy is not to object to HS2 as we have a constituency that has views on both sides but we are clear that we have to protect the waterways. Fradley is one particular area of concern and we've worked with the IWA on a better, cheaper route that would reduce the number of crossings over the canal. We've been very active with the HS2 engineering team to advise and influence them. We have assured them we'll keep speaking constructively to them as that's the right way to influence, not being seen as trouble-makers but being in there and convincing them with our credible arguments.

This next phase is critical and we will be strongly making our case and fighting for the waterways.

Continuous cruiser travel

17. Has CaRT got a reasonable distance where a continuous cruiser has to travel?

I knew we would get back to the final element of the very first question eventually!

When applying for a licence we can only ask whether the boater has a home mooring or not and ask for evidence of boat safety certificate and insurance etc. We can't say ‘let me study your personal circumstances to see if you can be a continuous cruiser', there's no legal basis for us to do so.

The issue of distance travelled over the course of a licence isn't defined in the legislation and hasn't been fully established by case-law either. But we need a basis for managing the waterways sensibly and so we have given some guidelines that people can live by.

The key I think and what is not in doubt is the 14 day maximum stay in one place, and the need to then move to the next place. We are clear that it can't be 50 yards or 100 yards, you need to make a more significant move to the next place. But what does that mean? Well, we've done some work to try to define that, basically by applying some common sense. So if it's got a different name or there's an obvious break or delineation then we think that constitutes another place. We're not going to say you have to travel Xkm, we haven't got the legal clarity to do that but we will enforce movement every 14 days.

Things on towpaths

18. What are your legal rights in maintaining the integrity of the towpath. I'm thinking of people that set up home with lots of things on the towpath, washing lines etc? It can be an obstacle course.

Any permanent structure has to keep the towpath clear. We have to provide free access to the waterways, it is one of the terms of our contract with Government. Temporary structures, such as a bit of clutter, are a bit of a grey area and it's harder to enforce. It all comes back to engagement and persuading and educating people to show respect for the waterway and the people around them who also use and enjoy the towpath. We do need to stop people from doing reckless or dangerous things that might harm others where we are aware of it.

Live-aboard in marinas

19. Can people live-aboard in a marina?

Technically, most marinas don't have planning permission for residential boats. Some marinas are getting planning permission and are creating a new product which I understand are reasonably popular. I suspect there are some people where there's a crossover, they live on their boat lots, but not quite all, of the time. We encourage people to only live on board where there is planning permission to do so but it is not really a matter for us to enforce, it's an issue for local authorities principally.

Valid licence in marinas

20. I was told by someone from CaRT that some marinas don't need you to have a valid licence.

Is that true?

If the marina is on a canal section with an agreement with us we do require boats to be licenced and would strongly encourage it in all marinas. With marinas on river sections where we have no land ownership and there is no legal requirement for an agreement with us to connect to the river then it's not so clear and some marinas don't require all their berth holders to hold a licence. When boats come onto the navigation they do of course need to be licenced although I concede that some boaters may decide to take the risk knowing they're not going to venture out that often. We work with the marina industry to ensure everyone's licenced appropriately but it's not easy to have a consistent approach given the long legal history and the different status of various marinas.

Safe 14 days moorings

21. I don't live on my boat but have to move my boat every 14 days at least. I find that there's not enough good quality 14 day moorings which are safe. All the 48 hour moorings are in the best places but I would like better than what's left. It should be easier for continuous cruisers.

We'll take it away. We've not had money to do much in recent years but I'd like to think we could start to do more and get the balance of moorings right.

Friends in competition with IWA

22. How do you see the Friends scheme in competition with IWA membership? Is it not strange for the public to have two waterways bodies?

We work really well with the IWA and it's been great seeing how well they've adjusted to the creation of the Trust. As we seek to grow fundraising capability we're working more closely in the same space and we're both learning how to do that. I was at Middlewich at the weekend and it was great to see both Trust and IWA stands alongside each other.

Of course I want people to become Friends of the Trust, but I don't really mind if people support one and not the other as long as we're getting the active support and advocacy for the waterways. The real benefit we have is that if you join us as a Friend it's a chance to put money directly into the upkeep of the waterways. Your £3 a month will go into spend on the waterways and we think there's a market for that. We have nearly 6000 active friends who donate regularly and, generously, once they've signed up they stay with us and I'm very encouraged by that.

Other CRT staff responses as shown:

SM—Sean McGinley, Waterway Manager, East Midlands/ Acting Waterway Manager, Central Shires.

DF—David Fearn, Principal Waterway Engineer, Central Shires.