The Floater August 2018

August 2018 - It is fair to say that Burnley Canal Festival over the bank holiday weekend was not all it might have been – not because of lack of effort by the organisers but because it was lacking one vital ingredient – boats.

August 2018 - Everyone is preparing to celebrate what is being described as the 200th anniversary of the Lancaster Canal next year and now there is a coffee table book out to mark the event – even though the book itself makes clear that the canal was opened in instalments and 2019 marks the bicen

August 2018 - When Canal & River Trust decided to tear down the structure established by Richard Parry and the trustees, just five years after those changes were made, we were told that 78 senior posts would be scrapped and replaced by 60 posts and that just 27 of the new jobs would be senior

August 2018 - Canal & River Trust has suffered a substantial data leak, with boaters renewing their licences being sent details of up to 67 other boaters along with their own.

August 2018 - The Lancaster Canal’s summer water supply has been an issue for boaters for many years, with the Ribble Link closed a few years ago because of low levels and the Glasson flight of locks currently shut in order to preserve water.

August 2018 - The Canal & River Trust has urged Government to consider the needs of boaters and put financial support into the development of new, cleaner technology for the waterway sector in its response to the Government’s draft Clean Air Strategy.

August 2018 - Asked to explain discrepancies within its own figures on canal closures, Canal and River Trust’s head of legal services claimed answering the questions, from The Floater’s Allan Richards, would cause: “harassment of, or distress to, the public authorities staff'.

August 2018 - The first boater organisation – and so far the only one – to challenge the Environment Agency’s plans to hike boat registration fees by between 10 per cent and 5.7 per cent per year for three years is the National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA), as Alec Wood reports

August 2018 - The sheer scale of the closures and restrictions, both drought-related and the physical failures of the network’s structures has been brought home in Canal & River Trust’s usually chirpy and lightweight Boater’s update, as Peter Underwood observes.

August 2018 - The impact of the drought is steadily moving south to impact on increasingly large areas of the system, with London the latest as the rivers feeding the Grand Union and Paddington Arm drying up.

August 2018 - After earning negative national publicity for its bid to raise the price of London moorings in a series of price hikes more than four times the rate of inflation, as well as now facing a threat of a serious legal challenge, it seems Canal & River Trust is having a rethink.

August 2018 - Canal & River Trust is conducting a massive charm offensive to bring more of the public to the canals, with large scale spending on advertising and social media, as part of it’s bid for replacement government cash once the current grant ends, on the basis that it is enhancing th