Peter's Waterways Blog Open Staircases (Sometimes) This was first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in November 2016, reporting on the Leeds and Liverpool bi-centenary flotilla and the navigational issues that arose from it.

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Part of the flotilla below Bingley 3-rise

Travelling with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal's bicentenary flotilla in October 2016, we had had lots of help from volunteers and C&RT people along its course. At Bingley 3-rise, the structure is always operated by lockkeepers, and that bears comparison with the bigger (seventy-foot) Northgate 3-rise on the Shropshire Union in Chester which is operated by boatcrews.

I enjoy working locks, and sometimes it's a challenge to work out the best strategy, and then there are other navigators to reassure that two ascending narrowboats can pass one descending narrowboat inside the flight, and maybe the next narrowboat that is following as well. It may require a bit of shouting down to boats already in the flight to explain how the boatshuffling is to work. "When we have a level, we open the gates and the towingpath-side boat comes forward alongside the descending boat. The second boat pushes across into the gap now alongside. The descending boat goes forward into the space created and the first boat pushes across into the space now alongside it. The second boat then comes forward into that space and the gates are closed." And maybe extra reassurance along the lines of "Yes the towingpath-side boat ends up on the offside, and that may confuse its dog on the towingpath. But that's easy enough to sort out at the top"

Boats passing between top and middle locks in Northgate Staircase, Chester on the Shropshire Union Canal

descending Bingley 5-rise staircase in 1978 without the assistance of any lockkeepers

While volunteer lockkeepers are, of course, a useful resource for advice and assistance while they are there, provided they fully understand both the navigational issues involved, and their role in operating the structures... ...let's have confidence in those who navigate the system and rely on them to take responsibility for doing their job properly: after all, there is no oversight of a boat's movements between structures or inside most tunnels. If navigators can understand a 3-rise, the same principles apply to the 5-rise. And, yes, I am old enough to have operated the 5-rise without any lockkeepers to help. It's just too easy to persuade ourselves that navigators, even new navigators, are so easily bemused by the simple system of moving water around to send boats up and down that 'we' have to do it for them: then 'we' are only available for some of the daylight hours, so the structure has to be closed until 'we' the experts arrive to operate it.

The theme of IWA campaigning needs to be that the inland waterways ought to be open in all senses. C&RT has much improved on its predecessor in being open to advice assistance and volunteering of all its customers and users, and it is more open in explaining its decisions and the results of its management. To improve our navigations, we need them open on a turn-up-and-go-basis whenever we have light to safely navigate. That's the best way to maintain and expand the movement, the colour, the vibrancy that navigation brings to our waterways, which we need to continue to protect with all the campaigning and the vigor that inspired the early IWA.

Part of the flotilla below Bingley 5-rise

Peter Scott @peterjohnscott