Peter's Waterways Blog Cut Off All Summer This was first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in September 2018, commenting on the recent Pennine Waterway closures

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As I write this in Sheffield, in early autumn 2018, I am cut off navigationally from London by all routes bar the tidal Trent. Everything across the Pennines is closed as a through route for lack of water and has been closed for the whole of the school summer holidays, when we might have expected the peak in navigation. I have yet to meet anyone in C&RT who thinks such a sorry state of affairs was their responsibility, something for which, doing their job, they should have prevented. They all say it was the hot weather and the lack of rain in the Pennines that was responsible. The Weather Was The Ogre. And so it was. If I correctly remember a presentation from the C&RT water management team, these closures would only happen once in twenty years. And the mathematician in my soul chirps that just because it happened this year in no way completely prevents it happening next year too. See this from C&RT.

New C&RT Logo at anniversary event Spring 2019

Our national Navigation Committee will be considering launching a Resilience Campaign - how to make more of our network by wasting less. Examples are: - wear on wide lock gates by boat gunwales scraping past the closed gate: better protection for the gates would help retain water. - Dredging summit levels to their original depth would retain more water in a similar way that the widened Knostrop Pound in Leeds retains more water as part of the Flood Alleviation Scheme. - Access to more reservoir capacity ceded to the Water companies. - More backpumping. - More remote monitoring of water levels with local volunteers responding to leak (accidentally open paddles) notifications. - Winding holes at top and bottom of all flights to avoid unnecessary locking by those wishing to go t'other way. - Using technology to find and co-ordinate boats into sharing wide locks. And any other ideas which may not be original in themselves but can help as part of an overall strategy. Maybe it could be a Network Wellbeing Strategy to complement the new C&RT logo and strapline. Peter Scott