I WAS amazed at the cheek of Canal & River Trust spouting how marvellous its maintenance of its waterways is, as an excuse for bumping up our licence fees, writes James Henry.
I too have recently cruised the Staffs & Worcs Canal as did Victor Swift, and can definitely confirm it is in the worst condition ever, and I have been cruising it for years.
It is not only this canal however, for wherever you go there are problems as the Trust actually confirms with its endless list of stoppages.
Shocking state of neglect
The lock gates leak, but that no longer seems a problem, as most of them leak now, but what is a problem in that the locks themselves, as your pictures showed [shown again] are in a shocking state of neglect, and the many boaters I have spoken to agree that they have never been as bad.
But it's all the usual smoke and mirrors backed up by the Trust's now expected statistics, that of course are there solely to impress the uninitiated, of which I am convinced there are fewer and fewer. and especially the boaters who have to struggle through its broken down locks.
No mention of backlog
They go on about all this money they are spending on maintenance, yet as you so rightly pointed out there was no mention of the many millions of maintenance backlog, that is piling up year after year.
This backlog, obvious to all, is the reason for the many stoppages we have to suffer, as it results in less and less maintenance.
Does not seem to grasp
Another thing the Trust is fond of is telling us it is a '200 years old system', yet does not seem to grasp that it is the age of this system that warrants good maintenance to keep it working; instead it lets the backlog get worse and worse, so of course it all fails, with closure after closure to maintain its now 'wait until it breaks' philosophy. [The paddle is at Woodend Lock that has been out of action since at least May of this year.]
I think it was about 14 years ago that I was banned from writing in narrowboatworld as I had too often complained about the lack of criticism of the Trust by the magazines at the time, but I will risk it again and point out they all seem to 'toe the party line', alas with the new addition of what calls itself 'The No 1' keeping up the trend of backing Canal & River Trust whatever the actual facts.
If they were somewhat more honest perhaps the Trust would be less cavalier in its attitude to us, the boaters.