Peter's Waterways Blog Answering a Grumpy Boater This was first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in December 2015, as a summary of the challenges in keeping the waterways open.

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Canals navigated (red) in 2015

Our two thousand miles afloat this year had just a few lock-queues to jointly-solve the problems of the boating world while setting the lock for the next boat. And then there's the next couple of hours at the tiller composing a better response to that Grumpy Boater who had thought through a long list of grumbles. My best attempt goes something like this.

Dear Grumpy Boater, We'll all have our own Golden Age: you said yours was around 2001 when Things Were Looking Up. We were opening all the Millennium projects - Huddersfield Narrow, Rochdale, Lancaster Link, Anderton Lift, Falkirk Wheel; we had a newly re-elected Government with a large majority and a waterways-sympathetic Secretary Of State, who had published a forward-looking "Waterways For Tomorrow" document. The UK economy was solid, gently expanding, and waterways funding was going up. Backlogs of maintenance were being sorted out and BW were the lead in the Cotswold restoration Partnership and enthusiastic to take even more restorations under their wing, to add to the Kiveton to Norwood Tunnel part of the Chesterfield Canal.

Lock beam poem

Attention Dogs

You highlighted the ups and downs since then: "the network has suffered badly and we are reduced to a just-about-getting-by. But when there is more money, we accept the new lower standard we have got-by-with and have to stamp our feet to return to anything closer to an acceptable standard. The new money is spent on frippery rather than applied consistently and logically to the backlogs of reduced standards. We have more office staff, we have more marquees and towpath-chuggers recruiting waterway Friends; we have frippery of poems on lock beams, we have new signs saying "Grrr Grrr" to dogs and we spend all that money on surveys of newts.

“And still the bottom is too near the top; the offside tress impede safe navigation; towingpath vegetation cuts off the towing path from the canal; water and time is wasted in locks that have signs demanding they be kept empty; too many wide locks have to be limited to single boats; one tunnel is closed four days each week when it was opened for all seven days in 2001; locks which traditionally had gate paddles no longer have them; too many only-one-paddle-working locks are left to the winter to fix properly; where we have had sanitary stations too many are closed or not working; the pump-out card-reading machines are a complete lottery; visitor mooring are blocked by boats ignoring the time-limits; new marinas put up unfriendly signs telling passing boaters to go elsewhere to turn around; a towingpath stroll is ruined by speeding cyclists; graffiti is tolerated too long and discourages casual visitors; and when there is a problem to report on a summer weekend there's an emergencies-only phone service, ..."

Discussing with Richard Parry C&RT Chief Executive

Market Harborough Arm's towingpath vegetation

I'm sure you would have had more issues if the lock-queue had been longer. Lots of them will take time to solve: generally Canal and River Trust have a genuinely different culture from BW, and have recognised from their beginning in 2012 that funding would improve over time but that the backlogs would build up even more for the first year or so. There is a balance of investment in different long-term projects such as increasing the support from the public as a whole, from hands-on volunteers and from all types of waterway users. People giving money regularly, however expensive it is to get started, will create a year-on-year increasing level of support and will eventually give more money than it costs to recruit these regular givers.

As to this balance of using money on office-based people rather than dredging, and between long and short-term projects: it's what we ask the trustees and the management to decide. At a higher level, government supports the waterways as well as havingless-than-enough for schools, health, and adult-care services (among other things): it's a best-judgement which balances competing demands. Richard Parry, Chief Executive, has made an extensive personal effort to listen to boaters and every other customer in all parts of the network: one outcome has been a specific programme of dredging in the Winter Works programmeto improve that backlog.

Milton Keynes towingpath vegetation

Shropshire Union towingpath vegetation

On the shared use of our towing paths, there has been a C&RT-consultation and a report was published with all user groups identifying problems. Users mentioned conflicts between cyclists and boaters, between fishermen and cyclists, cyclists and dogs, and under narrow bridges, cyclists with cyclists: meetings around the country had a clear idea of the common theme but the report itself wasn't so sure! Proper sharing needs the path to be a proper part of the canal: in some places vast trees and bushes prevent boats and walkers seeing one another. The maintenance is all contracted out and it needs lots of effort to check that's it's being done properly. In some places the path is brilliant: the contractors do very well, for example, around Milton Keynes: by happenstance that's where the C&RT Head Office is.

It was the tall chap with the green boat who bemoaned his ten thousand pounds on new shiny paint that was soon gouged on the offside by an overhanging stub-of-branch that looked like some soft leaves. With all those C&RT-inspections from the towingpath, it's just not possible to understand where the sightlines are so eroded by offside trees. It needs C&RT to get themselves afloat more, and there is a boatingbuddy scheme to do some of that: it needs boaters to offer to host C&RT-staff.

Sanitary Station "Closed due to vandalism"

Bridge sign with two numbering systems

And I did my best to answer the other issues too, and then we came upon one of those closed sanitary stations. It is a challenge to all of us waterways volunteers and professionals pointing in the same direction. Last year I complained of some oddities on the Huddersfield canals and our 2015 trip across the Huddersfield has to be a disappointment to find nowt has happened. No doubt other priorities intervened! As they did to the stream of issues that disappointed Grumpy Boater. It will all soon mist-over with Christmas Cheer and the armchair-planning of where-to-go next year. Here's to a Good Road.

Peter Scott @peterjohnscott