BELLE

There has been a lot reported in the boating media of late about the conflicting views between BW and boaters regarding the condition of the waterways. BW is adamant that the waterways are in better condition today than they have been for many years. Boaters on the other hand can readily see evidence of a trend with their own eyes that that the waterways are in fact seriously deteriorating. I’ve been thinking; could this be because those at BW responsible for surveying and managing the maintenance do not actually get to see many miles of the waterway close up with their own eyes?

The first image below is a section of the wall at Hunts Lock (L15) on the Trent & Mersey Canal. Clearly the masonry here has been seriously eroded, so much so that bricks are now falling out of the wall into the bottom of the lock. I am confident that folks would not have much trouble at all finding similar examples of erosion in locks elsewhere.

The following images show examples of canal retaining wall erosion typical of that found throughout most of the section of the Trent & Mersey Canal between Woodend Lock (L20) and the A515 Bridge (B54) near Kings Bromley. Not so obvious when covered with reeds, etc. during the rest of the year, but very evident at this time of the year.

A great deal of effort must have gone into constructing this wall when the canal was first built and BW is simply letting it go to ruin. The large stones used to construct the wall eventually topple into the canal and sit on the canal bed awaiting the unsuspecting boater. The bank behind the wall erodes even faster thereafter, thus aggravating the silting up of the canal bed.

As anybody will tell you that has passed another boat at this location, you do not have to try very hard to find these stones! Running onto silt is bad enough, but these monsters are a different matter entirely. Again, there must be many examples of this type of erosion elsewhere.

I for one think that it would be a good idea to offer some surveying assistance to BW. To this end, I shall shortly therefore be commencing my own regular ‘mini-surveys’ of our area, assigning GPS coordinates to one or more images of any defects found and then I shall be advancing this information to BW. I propose that, if others did the same, the collective effort would be of immense benefit to BW because they would surely become much more aware of the presence/location of defects (at no additional cost to BW I might add). BW should able to target maintenance resources more efficiently as a result.

This is of course the first step. I say this because it is conceivable that, even if provided with much more detail about waterway defects, BW might not have sufficient maintenance resources to remedy these defects in a reasonable timescale. A step at a time I say – what we need first is a high level of visibility of the maintenance related problems boaters are experiencing now. Confronted with a mass of evidence to the contrary, how on earth could BW continue to get away with claiming that all is well?

Waterway user feedback like that described above will help shift the attention to where it is really needed.

A page will be added to this site soon showing logged defects, along with date of notification to BW, the BW response and the date that the defect concerned was fixed.

You too have Internet access, otherwise you would not be reading this. Bet you have a Nicholsons Guide and a camera function on your mobile phone as well.

You are fully tooled up – Bring it on!