Enough is enough

BOATERS are incensed at the news that English Nature wants to use the waterways for a route for birds, insects and mammals as wildlife corridors, with its accompanying restrictions to boating, and write:

As the interests that caused the canals to be created in the first place are now so clearly relegated to the bottom of the pile, is it not time to throw in the towel and hand them all over to English Nature and be done with it? Asks Paul Sillitoe.

Let it take the responsibility and the cost. When, in 50 years' time, our canals have reverted to unmanaged stinking rubbish-filled ditches, perhaps there will be sufficient incentive for a new restoration movement in a more enlightened environment.

I've been deeply involved in many aspects of inland waterways, their history, management and navigation for more than three decades, and enough is enough.

Another Tom Rolt

Paul has hit the nail on the head here, writes Martin Brooks.

I believe the best thing that could happen for the inland waterways is for CaRT to fail, the waterways to fall into disuse, the businesses to fail or move to pastures new, the cyclists to find easier routes, and the nature lobby to have their own way for a while.

Then, only the true enthusiasts will remain, and another Tom Rolt will emerge!

Has to stop

It is about time that Canal & River Trust started to ignore the demands of English Nature and the like, who it seems want to take over the waterways, writes T Lang.

I realise that the Trust wants to appear to be everything to everybody—English Nature, all those Waterway Partnership scroungers, cyclists, walkers and Uncle Tom Cobley and all, but cannot it realise that it is primarily a navigation authority?

This latest wheeze of using our waterways as wildlife corridors I can see being very much to the detriment of us boaters, for I was caught-up in some of its activities on the Ashby earlier this year, where its people were laying down their law to us boaters.