Peter's Waterways Blog Let's Be Open This is a version of my article first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in 2012, and still relevant today; we still need IWA to campaign that all Navigation Authorities keep their waterways open, particularly during the months that their customers most want to navigate them, and have procedures to satisfy us that they know this is their primary purpose and reason for existing.

"We'll close the checkouts for a couple of hours on Friday afternoon, to make that painting job much easier: thems halfway round with their shopping: they'll just have to wait. We'll say how sorry we are for the inconvenience." It wouldn't happen. The existence of a supermarket depends on customers going through the checkouts. Every layer of management just wouldn't willingly allow closure for five minutes, and certainly not for an hour or a day. If they did stop maybe someone does have a list of today’s baked beans price, and a pocket calculator...

Hanbury locks, 2018

It is the essence of the Canal and River Trust that it is a navigation authority: that's why we have it as a national body - and why IWA hes since its inception campaigned for it to run more of the connected system by taking on Environment Agency waterways. If there was no navigation, the public would be better off with locally-based duckpond management. As an organisation, C&RT needs to be worried about public safety (as does the supermarket), about employing and retaining good people (adts), about good environmental practice (adts), about contracting with suppliers (adts), about satisfying The Board, The Customers, The Government (adts) and about all those other important issues. Maybe it even needed its first attempt at an advertising strapline keeping people nature & history connected (adts with Every Little Helps). John Liley in his November 2012 Waterways World column "Wait For Freight" made a similar point, that at first C&RT "seemed in denial of being a navigation authority"

It is good practice for C&RT's Chief Executive Report to every Trustee Board meeting to review all safety incidents on the navigation. Even better, as well, would be to have a report on each incident of Navigation Closure, so that managers at all levels can be judged, and can make informed decisions, on how well they are achieving C&RT's puprose of being a navigation authority. With our new spirit of co-operation let's invite them all to join a Let’s Be Open campaign: What Do We Want: Open Canals When Do We Want Them All The Time. There are many challenges for the new C&RT, with its 15-yr assured (but inadequate) public funding, with its commitment to volunteers and to recruiting 'supporters' to give it money. Among them is its inhertited culture of finding it easier to manage a closed canal than an open one, and using its ability to apply a padlock when it ought to be prioritising its main job and helping rather than hindering its navigation customers.

A closure for investigations in September

Maybe it was wholly unavoidable to close the checkouts (sorry) navigation on those four separate days in the four emails (click them to see them full-size): and maybe I missed a consultation somewhere when I had a chance to say I would prefer the navigation open and the investigations done in winter alongside closures for necessary winter works. In the spirit of Let’s Be Open, the business case, the other options rejected, and later the ourtcomes all need to be published with that report to the Chief Executive on why navigation responsibilities were relinquished and why managers chose administrative convenience (even if cheaper) over customer service.

The creation of C&RT made it the direct owner of the Rochdale Canal, from The Waterways Trust previously, and hence an opportunity to take a longer view of the water supply problems, which this investigation would be evidence. The business case for these closures and the results of the investigations could be published so that those inconvenienced could understand the advantages. The need to do this, and to report through the Chief Executive to the trustees ought to inspire proper consideration of alternatives that keen the canal Open. Mine is a family of water engineers who cannot stop off water flows for their investigations, and have experience of allowing for known flows in their calculations, in this case allowing navigation to continue.

On this occasion, it wasn't us who were put off or inconvenienced by those particular stoppages: our trip on Fulbourne was on twelve (not continuous) days from Macclesfield to Manchester to Liverpool to HebdenBridge. On ten of the days we needed to work around C&RT restrictions and stoppages. There were eight separate restrictions and we traversed five of them twice. Each could have its own article, and each deseves its own review on why it needs to be there at all, what effect it has on the use of the canal and the enjoyment of onlookers and boaters, and - at the basic level - how commitments to opening times can be met on time instead of an hour late.

Another version of this article first appeared in the September 2012 edition of MilePost, the newsletter of West Riding Branch: click to see the full edition.