Bridgewater bookings

Following an agreement with the Bridgewater Canal Company, CRT-licensed boaters wishing to access the Bridgewater Canal, must now pre-book the visit using the on-line booking system (https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/boating/planning-your-boat-trip/booking-your-passage-online), after you have set up a customer account, or by phone on 0303 0404040. Outbound passage, free of charge, is limited to a maximum of seven continuous days […]

Disabled boaters’ forum

Ken Hylins reports on the meeting on 12th April. I attended this meeting for the first time with an open mind as to what to expect. There were seven people in the Zoom meeting: Matthew Symonds (Chairing) and Rachel Heywood from CRT, a waterway chaplain and other people with an interest in this matter. The […]

Lockdown lock use

– CRT’s annual lockage report for 2020 The headline figure, comparing 2020’s lock use with the previous year, is that there was a reduction of almost 33% across 172 comparison sites. In the week before the first lockdown in March, there were some 3,500 weekly lock counts, which fell to fewer than 1,000 during lockdown. From early […]

A sad reminder of the CO danger

Every so often, something happens that brings home the dangers closely associated with our way of life and hobby. Preventing carbon monoxide (CO) accumulation has been in the forefront of the fight to make life on a boat safer, with compulsory CO meters, adequate ventilation and a programme to make boaters more aware of the […]

Evaluation of the Performance of the Canal & River Trust

TENDERS are being invited by DEFRA to evaluate the performance of the Canal and River Trust.  The tender notice is inviting suppliers for the evaluation of the performance of the Canal & River Trust Project, see: https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2021/W11/746914121 The aim to undertake a ‘backward looking’ socio-economic evaluation, to collect and synthesise evidence in order to answer […]

The debate over the eco-toilet rolls on

– says enthusiast Helen Hutt. Let me firstly declare, I’m a fan of eco-toilets. As a continuous cruiser, I bought one in 2009. Every two months or so, I emptied my poo pot into a 10-litre paint tub with a tight-fitting lid until I could dispose of the contents, using a network of amenable farmers’ […]