ALL ALONG THE Leeds & Liverpool Canal are drained pounds.
Many with boats stuck fast, Janet Friend reports.
Every one of the many lock flights is closed, with the Canal & River Trust telling boaters to cruise along the pounds between the locks.
Most of the boats are unable to do this as many pounds are not navigable owing to the lack of water.
As water has drained away through many leaking lock gates.
The feeling, many boaters tell us, is that the trust has brought this on themselves by stopping maintenance when it first took over from the then British Waterways.
Then had to rely on contractors that had no knowledge of the waterways, hence the repairs that needed repairing again, and again.
Many boaters that are stranded are telling us of their anger at being left in such a position, when all the trust is doing is simply closing the locks and the canals.
And of course blaming the dry weather.