Peter's Waterways Blog A Long Time To Moor ? This was first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in June 2106 as an example of strange, and expensive, signage that gives the wrong information.

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2016 version of the mooring restrictions at Little Venice towingpath

There is a whole new set of signs around Little Venice, all put up just in time for IWA's annual Cavalcade at the May Bank Holiday. The moorings closer to Brownings Pool continue to be limited to seven days and those further away will now allow boats to be moored all year. With the pressure on housing in London, it looked likely to be crowded facility! Answering my wonderings on how this came about: the C&RT Boater Liaison Manager London said "... Unfortunately, our specification was misinterpreted and the designers had to use standard icons from the signage strategy toolbox. The signs were signed off as part of a big batch of new signs for Cavalcade, [and] the effectiveness of the message wasn't scrutinised as it should have been due to the tight timescale. [We] have asked the designers to amend it, and create new icons: 'Applies all year' [without] the mooring symbol."

2017 version of the mooring restrictions The direct replacement for the sign above

Equivalent sign for the 14-day section of the moorings

Update: we are usually visitors to Little Venice only for Cavalcade, so have an annual view of the signage. By 2017, it seems that the designers had come up with an addition to the signage strategy toolbox. Well done them! I wonder if this sign is more easily understood. In my humble opinion, it is an improvement both on the 2016 version and on all its successors.

2018 version of the mooring restrictions

By 2018, there had been a change in the general design and colouring of C&RT signs, so there was a new set made for Little Venice. As you do. This is the sign at the junction of the 7-day and 14-day moorings. It is not obvious to me that the three icons at the top have to be read together, rather than grouping the two on the left to define what happens to the left of the sign, and the others to describe the right of the sign. The subtleties of the English language are not easily translated into C&RT iconograpy, however much the signage strategy toolbox is extended.

2019 version, 7-day section

Junction of 7-day and 14-days

14-day section

By 2019, there had been another change in the general design of C&RT signs, with its new round logo, so there was a new set made. As you do. It seems that the signage strategy toolbox has been amended once more, with "Applies all year" amended to "All year". It's not obvious to me why three icons are needed on the middle sign, when each of the others has a single icon for the mooring restriction. Maybe it has a different designer to the others, which might explain why it has the "Making life better by water" strapline, the "Welcome to" and the twiddly bit on the bottom. We have come almost full-circle in the ambiguity stakes, allowing those untutored in C&RT iconograpy to belive they can moor all year to the right of that middle sign. With that interpretation, it is a fourteen day restriction to the left and (maybe) a single boatlength of 7-days where the sign is: the reasoning for the middle-top "All year" is not explained, but there are lots of redundant and incomprehensible icon-squares on six-foot high posts all around the system; it seems to be the responsibility of C&RT to make them clear, not the innocent reader to try to jigsaw a sensible meaning to them.

Peter Scott @peterjohnscott