Things that became apparent part 1

British Waterways.

As I mentioned in my last blog we had quite a struggle from Gailey lock down to Tixall lock with some low and some very low pounds and when you are grinding your bottoms away as you plough a channel along the whole length of a pound then it does get a little annoying to say the least and, I might add not for the first time for at least the last four times we have gone this way we have had to plough our way through. The problem is not ‘ as suggested on two occasions by BW staff’ “someone left a paddle up last night” but in fact a complete lack of maintenance. The gates at both ends of Tixall lock are leaking like a sieve and it takes two locks of water to fill the chamber and you don’t have to draw a paddle to empty it. The top gate is leaking all round and water is even pouring from underneath the ‘babby’. This is bad enough but to infuriate even more BW have got a tug, hopper and dredger spot dredging all along this whole stretch instead of fixing the leaking gates, and to infuriate even, even more the dredgings are being placed on the offside edge of the canal only to immediately start to wash/slip/slide back into the canal and within a few months will be back into the channel again. Early Monday morning we saw a BW employee with a black bag and an litter picker walking the pound at Boggs lock. While I accept that stretches of canal through towns/cities will suffer from litter louts but this is a stretch of canal miles from anywhere, in the middle of the country and not suffering with litter. The second irritating BW staff usage was just along the Staffs & Worcester from Hayward Junction where an employee was observed cutting waters edge reeds down with a petrol strimmer on a little used stretch of towpath and which were not causing any inconvenience anyway. I am sure that the working hours of these five members of staff along with the dredger,tug, hopper, fuel, wages etc. etc. could have been put to much better use. My final moan is regarding overhanging vegetation. When oh when are British Waterways going to start serving notices on home owners who allow their trees to block the canal navigation. On the stretch of the Trent and Mersey just between kings Bromley and Brindley bank are several examples where huge weeping willows hang right down to the water and block over half the width of the canal, the problem being for deep drafted historical craft you have a choice either go through the green curtains not being able to see through or past them or go round them with the risk of grounding. In this instance I have noted the exact positions of these offending trees (houses in Leyland Drive, Poplars Road, Little Brickyard Gardens and 153 Armitage Road which only took ten minutes on 'Google earth' and 'street map') and am sending a letter to BW’s area manager warning him that now that I have brought these risks to his notice and that he is aware of them, then any accident or injury resulting from these overhanging trees will be his responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Ok so whinge and moan over until the next blog!

Blossom.