There is nothing so sure than that much vaunted phrase 'Better by water' is a laugh! Writes T. Lang.
For there isn't any, at least not where I am on the Grand Union, in fact I am at a very awkward slant, owing to the lack of it making life extremely difficult.
With no help whatsoever from those at the trust—that you certainly can't!
Walking along the pound there are six boats also at a slant caused by a drained canal, and as your other boaters write, it is mainly caused by leaking lock gates, emptying gallon upon gallon into the streams and rivers.
At the risk of stating the obvious, it is the lack of prior maintenance that is the main cause of all this, as you just cannot leave 150 to 200 years old structures to go on working without maintenance.
I would have thought anyone with any sense would realise that a little prior maintenance would save an awful lot of money when the structure then breaks, as break it is doing and is certainly costing a lot of money with the suspect efforts of contractors.
I learn we now have, or shortly will have, a new boss-man, as your Victor calls them, but reading the blurb it seems that nature and the like are his interests, that to my mind does not auger too well for our waterways.