Why I don't feel like a valued customer

The current DEFRA consultation on the future structure of BW closes at the ended of the month and I have been reviewing lots of my file records over the past few days both in connection with that and my more more personal ongoing 'discussions' with BW and others about the better management of the Houseboat Certificate Scheme. I also started a thread on a waterways forum to see if I could get some views on one aspect of the ongoing question of how BW proposes better managing visitor moorings.

The common thread in all this is the reflection that these and many other boating related issues have been debated yet remain unresolved over many years. Maybe I'm just getting too bitter and twisted but it strikes me that in a variety of ways, this amounts to solid evidence of BW's continuing failure to achieve what we are supposed in management speak to call "positive outcomes".


I talked in the past about "serial complainers" and looking back at that I still stand by a lot of what I said there. Yesterday's post about the sign on my mooring is at one level just another example of 'doing it the hard way', a trivial example perhaps, but for me symptomatic of the bigger problem.

If we have to go to such lengths as formal complaints, in this case to the Ombudsman Service, to get such mundane issues sorted out, and still have to remind BW what they agreed to do before it happens, what confidence can we have that boaters' views are really being taken into account when it comes to the bigger picture?

Just short of six months after the Ombudsman told BW to repair the sign, a complex temporary repair has now been implemented and we are assured that a permanent sign is now on order!