Features

Written by boaters for boaters, The Floater has for now closed and the website will vanish in January 2019. To preserve her extremely well researched articles and blog posts for the benefit of the waterways historical record, we feel priviliged to repost these articles here on lo

The NBTA is an open organisation which aims to defend and improve our community’s way of life.

November 2018 - It has been almost eight years since David Cameron decided to get our national waterways off the government’s book by handing it over to a pseudo charity in what was meant to be the start of a mass handover of services the Tory government couldn’t sell off to private profiteers.

November 2018 - Canal & River Trust's Boaters' Update 27 July 2018 starts 'Welcome to the latest, bumper, edition. There's something for everyone; read about our positive Annual Report (we've spent more this year than ever before - £132m - on maintenance) ...'

November 2018 - Hard on the heels of confirming that boaters will see their prompt payment discount halved from next April and that it is going ahead with hikes in licence fees the following year, including charging more for boats wider than seven feet, Canal & River Trust has also announced

November 2018 - It has come to our attention that The Floater has become boring and old fashioned by failing to embrace the current trend for ‘fake news’ so our occasional correspondent Brian Jarrett has been listening at the third floor window in C&RT towers and brings us the latest updates

October 2018 - In the past week or two Canal& River Trust’s response to questions about whether it has sold BWML and its 18 marinas has changed from ‘We’ll tell you when it happens’ to ‘all I can say is we are in final discussions with a preferred bidder and an announcement about the disposal

October 2018 - It has become normal for Canal & River Trust to use it’s winter stoppage programme as a public relations opportunity and the press release kicking this off has just gone out – to be followed up with lock open days and more press releases, writes Alec Wood.

October 2018 - Boaters have long had serious doubts about the Canal & River Trust explanation of the cause of the Middlewich Breach early this year, but when one of them asked for the reports to substantiate its claim that it was caused by paddles left up on the lock above the breach site the

October 2018 - It has been a week since the Canal & River Trust proudly announced it had ‘won the award in the charity category for Openness in Reporting at the Building Public Trust in Corporate Reporting Awards 2018’