June 2017 - It cost Canal & River Trust half a million pounds to settle out of court with Ken Churchill after his boat sank in Lock 40 of the Bank Newton flight after snagging on a lock wall. He may have defeated C&RT in court, but Ken remains determined other boaters won't suffer the same fate, as Peter Underwood reports.

June 2017 - The Floater reaches 10-15,000 people most days with news about Britain's waterways – most of which won't be found in the commercial canal media, and certainly not from C&RT spin doctors – but it may be about to go out of business, reports Alec Wood.

June 2017 - C&RT's press release about its 2017 Boat Owners Survey places positive spin on the results but admits there is room for improvement. Instead of publishing the report on which the article is based, it says it will be published at a later date, Allan Richards reports.

This not only prevents boaters from checking the claims made against the report immediately but potentially prevents the report being obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. Section 22 of the Act allows information to be withheld if there is an intention to publish at a future date.

June 2017 - Nearly a quarter of boaters remain dissatisfied with the Canal & River Trust's waterways and more than 20 per cent would not recommend them to others – Peter Underwood explores C&RT's claims about the 2017 Boat Owners survey.

At present we only have C&RT's interpretation of the annual survey of Boat Owners’ Views and it goes for a relentlessly positive spin on what, for most charitable or commercial organisations, be a somewhat depressing result.