Canal and River Trust continue running pixx-up in brewery.

Same old shxte down the mooring; repairs by the complaints process.

How may complaints does it take for CRT to acknowledge that their contractors are defrauding them? And yes I don't mind using the word fraud when CRT have admitted in writing to me that that their contractors have been making claims for payment for work that never happened.

So thanks to my persistence in insisting that I am not mad, mistaken or paranoid and that in fact the contractors have not done the work they are supposed to for many months, finally CRT checked their own records properly. It took several attempt to get CRT to check thoroughly (and as is too often the case, its seems I am more familiar with their administrative procedures than recently joined staff are!)

Hence after many months we've proved to CRT that the pest control works they have been paying contractors to do all year have not been happening. The fact that they have been pulled up twice in the past by the Ombudsman for letting the service lapse adds to the injury. But I should not be surprised that CRT have forgotten.

I suspect they will find something similar if they decide to look back at the grounds maintenance contract as a whole. It 's amazing how the contractor suddenly turned up and did the work only after we complained!

CRT did get the main entrance gate repainted this summer - only three year late, which is quite good by their standards.

All quiet?

Mid August is usually a lull in the storm of CRT issues and one the whole much the same with me. If this year is true to form around about the beginning of September a load of things will kick off again.

Me; had a short dialogue with Richard Parry about the disappointing experience as a long term mooring customer. Ironically a few days after that conversation, CRT contractors turned up as planned to change our Service bollards over. A few hours in, one of my neighbours knocked on the boat to alert me to the fact that the new bollards did not have pairs of taps on them.

It seems CRT have unilaterally decided that having had a tap per berth for the last fifteen years or so we now have to go over to sharing. So much to being a valued customer!

Still fixing mooring prices?

I've highlighted for several years the moorings at Engineers Wharf in West London, and more importantly, given CRT's inability to keep the moorings fully let, the apparently inflated reserve prices that had been maintained, one suspects to help justify keeping prices up for other moorers locally.

It is more than three years since I first highlighted this, and for much longer than that, there have been persistent vacant berths (and lost income) at Engineers Wharf.  (Link to 83 no. closed vacancies/adverts and prices at Engineers Wharf since 2010! )

Well as of today there are no less than seven berths advertised as Buy It Now vacancies and the price for a 70' berth has been set at £5880 (up from £5292 as the reserve this time last year.)

Curious too that in the interim similar berths were the offered only three months ago with a reserve of £4998? So if you want, you can buy it now for £900 more than the reserve price when it was last auctioned - Any takers?!

What the heck is going on here!?

It seems that despite the good intentions set out  in the outcomes of the Moorings Sales Consultation, CRT are still in this case setting prices at pretty much at random. If anyone can make sense of these price variations, do let me know!

And of course it remains to be seen if the current vacancies will let. 

Winds of change at Canal and River Trust?

For many of us the most significant change happening on the waterways at the moment is the retirement of Sally Ash, CRT's Head of Boating and so I read the Kennet and Avon Boaters (KANDA) 'retrospective' on Sally's recent activities at BW and CRT with a mixture of amusement and sadness. I have to say that KANDA's article strongly resonates with my experience of and frustration with many aspects of boating politics over the last decade.

Where I would differ or perhaps add to the KANDA critique is to observe that it is too easy to blame one individual for the history of events. One must not forget that we are talking about the relationship of boaters with the whole organisation that was BW and now is CRT. While Sally has been the lightning rod for much dissatisfaction about boating management and policy, (and undoubtedly directly contributed to many of the problems), don't forget, she was not alone.

Caretaker boats

Ralph Freeman's latest post on Narrowboatworld rang a particular bell in my memory when he said of liveabard boaters, "Could it be that they see and know too much and embarrass the Old Guard at CaRT by complaining ?". This was certainly the case under the old caretaker scheme of which I was a part for over a decade. This apart from the general customer experience. (Just filter this blog using the label 'repairs' and you will see what I mean if you don't know already!)

Mooring customers still being screwed by Canal and River Trust

I've been tracking the state of play with vacancies at Engineer's Wharf for several years now and latest observations from the CRT moorings Auctions site re-confirm that CRT are simply lying to us when they claim that prices of directly managed moorings are market led.

As of today there are yet again two vacancies advertised, but the reserve prices have been increased since I last reported vacancies in Winter 2013. The current vacancies have reserve prices of £5292 pa. Agreed this is a modest increase of just over 1% compared to the reserve prices I reported in Sept 2012 but the facts are the same: The berths are it seems unpopular and/or have high turnover, but instead of lowering prices and getting them in use, the price goes up. 

A New Deal for boaters from the Canal and River Trust

Canal and River Trust has today announced a revolutionary new plan to re-invigorate private boating on the Inland Waterways of England and Wales.

A spokesperson for the Trust was heard to say: 

"For many years British Waterways neglected aspects of their the core responsibilities as a navigation authority and failed to give sufficient attention to it's most important group of fee paying customers. It is time that we improved on that. Private boatowners should be our most loyal supporters and our most valued customers and we have a duty of care towards them. 

"Recent policies of emphasising enforcement, restrictions and sanctions against boaters have been shown to be be counterproductive and a poor use of resources. We recognise that investing in better and more diverse physical facilities for all boaters is a more sustainable way to proceed in the future."

Should you bother volunteering with Canal and River Trust?

The whole question of volunteering with CRT is a difficult one for me, and I suspect for many others. What I do know is that CRT urgently have to up their game on this front by several orders of magnitude.

There is no doubt that CRT does not have the resources to maintain the waterways as a whole and are constantly fire fighting. Many jobs especially when it comes to litter and grounds maintenance, that in the past were done by staff or contractors, now only happen when volunteers are available. CRT realise this but are they going about engaging with volunteers effectively? Some examples of my personal frustrations:

Canal and River Trust does not record complaint outcomes

CRT have confirmed that they don't keep a list of complaint outcomes, (I assume a practise inherited from BW). Following a recent FOI response to the question: 'May I ask what percentage of formal complaints made to Canal Trust are upheld on investigation by yourselves?', we are told:

"... We have considered your request and I am writing to let you know that we do not hold this information. At the first and second levels of our complaints procedure (where we consider complaints, as opposed to the Waterways Ombudsman) we try to resolve complaints rather than judge whether we 'uphold' a complaint; as such we do not record the outcome of a complaint only that it is made."

Hardly surprising then that problems re-occur. From my various rantings in these pages I could have told you that. The repetition and re-occurrence of problems previously reported and even formally complained about, has long convinced me that there is a 'lack of corporate memory' in CRT. Their response to this FOI confirms it.

This state of affairs of course makes a mockery of the complaints process as a whole and undermines any claims that CRT cares for its paying customers and the wider community.

Plus ca change...

Still here and still trying to get CRT to finish all the repairs on the mooring that I complained about last year and as ever it is like drawing teeth to actually get jobs completed. The change from BW to CRT doesn't seem to make any difference on that front; you just have to keep battling and nagging them  to get the basics done.

Most beautiful was a recent e-mail where CRT (one suspects completely unwittingly) admitted they hadn't allocated the contractors enough time to do the routine site jobs properly so we should expect things not to be done when they should be! Needless to say they got a fairly sharp reply to that one!

Happy 10th Anniversary Year!

Just noticed it is now into the tenth year that I have been waiting for full terms and conditions for my mooring. 

I would particularly like to thank Tony Hales, Robin Evans, Sally Ash, Nigel Johnson, Simon Salem and all those others whose broken promises have been instrumental in reaching this anniversary, and without whose wider efforts I would not be today marking the last decade's struggle.

Two people are not with us today; that is Hilary Bainbridge and Stephen Edell. Sadly neither they or I have seen their recommendations come fully to fruition to date but I am sure they both wish us well for the future.

As some will know 10 years is in some contexts celebrated as a Tin anniversary. I am happy to say that we still seem to be kicking the same can down the road today as 10 years ago.

Same old nonsense

After a silence a little rant; but that's where I'm at so here goes.

I don't know how others are feeling, but I'm sitting here feeling pretty uninspired about CRT right now. Over the Summer we had the various launches over the promise of a bright new future. We had new committees and subcommittees, all be it with a variety of democratic deficits, and we had the royal wedding; I mean the civil partnership of CRT and the IWA. But for me it's all talk, no action, and the same old reality when you sit back and look.

I tend not to write a lot about NABO here but today a little change on that front. I've just allowed myself to be on the NABO Council for another year and it's clear when you look at the forums and listen to people around and about on the cut, that a lot of people ask, why bother with committees and such things? We don't seem to get much done.

It sometimes feels like that on our side too. But then it takes two to tango and this is where we seem to have a problem. Many in CRT still don't want to dance.

British Waterway's marginalisation of boaters plan proceeding well

Steve Haywood's recent vent on the subject of what a stitch up the recent election for boaters to CRT were reminded me of this theme. You've heard what I think, which is not so different. I've long observed that the one thing BW seem to fear the most and will do their utmost to disrupt is individual boaters from talking to people in power and authority about the reality of being a paying BW customer.

If there was any doubt about BW's contempt for individual customers, BW Director Stuart Mills kindly reminded me of it when he wrote to my MP in response to our complaints about the £600 mooring fee increases we are getting this year.

Anyway apparently I and my neighbours (so its not just me!) are mistaken in our complaints and should remember that we enjoy various privileges by being allowed to have our moorings. Gosh,  I am so honoured I don't know what to say; may I just grovel and say thank you, oh Great Munificence!

Boaters' financial contribution to British Waterways: update

FYI - I have just added the following to the previous post on this:

Addendum - 22 January 2012 - As anyone who has used the link to my FOI on this will see, BW has answered and say that an additional £4.7M of their annual income comes from businesses whose primary customers are boaters. Add this to the the figures above and we have confirmation that Boaters provide at least 20% of BW's annual income worth around £35 million pa at last year's rates.

How much do boat owners contribute to British Waterways' property income?

I don't know the answer to this question though I have wondered from some time. When I had my NABO hat on in the last few days the question of how much boaters already contribute financially to the waterways was in my mind. So now I have asked.

What I do notice is that when asked questions about how much boaters contribute financially to BW, the figures referred to are usually based only on the direct income that boaters contribute to BW as per the Annual Report and accounts.

• Boat licence income - 17.4M
• BW moorings - 6.3 M
• BWML total income - 6.6M

(Source Page 31 in BW 2010/11 Accounts)

So direct income from boaters last year was £30.3 million or 17.2% of BW's gross income. These are direct payments from boaters but what about the indirect payments that boaters make to those waterside businesses that in turn BW get a cut from?

It will be interesting to see the numbers and understand better how much of BW's commercial income from property is in fact derived indirectly from boaters pockets.

(Old rant about where my mooring fees do and don't go) 

Addendum - 22 January 2012 - As anyone who has used the link to my FOI on this will see, BW has answered and say that an additional £4.7M of their annual income comes from businesses whose primary customers are boaters. Add this to the the figures above and we have confirmation that Boaters provide at least 20% of BW's annual income worth around £35 million pa at last year's rates.

Feeding the hand that bites you

A slight rant today but I feel the need to say this. I was reminded of the above epithet which, I think I saw from someone else on-line on the same issue, when I saw this morning, the 'Biking for Bonuses' article from Narrowboatworld's Alan Richards in which he has highlighted an example of what is for myself and many a fundamental problem with the New Waterways Charity. I don't know and haven't met BW's new head of Fundraising and whether she or someone else is the originator of the idea that hard pressed staff members should pay an entry fee and give up annual leave to take part in a fundraising event for the NWC, I also don't know.

However I take the same sort of view as Alan, that who ever is responsible for this is on a another planet. Alan says it all in his article. By simply not standing firm and not paying the directors bonuses as previously agreed the BW Remuneration Committee has put a huge obstacle to any fundraising.

Waiting for the train that never comes

Going through old paperwork today I discovered that next week will be the ninth anniversary of my first serious questioning of British Waterways about terms and conditions for their residential mooring customers. As of today the question is still open. Along the way:

• Several Ombudsman Complaints in my favour.
• A Government Public Consultation
• A Select Committee
• BW unilaterally abandoning the Working Group supposed to address these issues
• Files full of correspondence and broken promises from BW starting with the Chairman Tony Hales
• Government Departments ducking the question and passing the buck between themselves

Still British Waterways seem unwilling to provide me with and other residential customers with the full written terms and conditions that a previous Ombudsman said I was entitled to.


I wonder if BW can string it out another year and make double figures?

Raw deal for British Waterways mooring customers

Most of you will realise that the I take some interest in the issue of Moorings. I'm quite unashamed about giving BW a hard time when they don't perform, especially when like me you are paying a premium rate for what I say is too often a poor service.

I always have a close read of the Waterways Ombudsman's annual report so was pleased this year to see that Ms Bainbridge has again highlighted two areas of longstanding concern to me. Lack of independent scrutiny of the charges we pay and more worryingly what I characterise as BW's persistent unwillingness to be clear about we mooring customers get for out money.

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".

The continuing joke of BW moorings maintenance

In December the Ombudsman made a ruling against BW in connection with one of my neighbours' wider complaint about maintenance on our mooring. 6 months later one of the repairs she recomended  be undertaken has still not been carried out!

A notional prize* will be awarded for anyone who can guess what this sign is supposed to say or do?

It seem BW's moorings service has declined so far that they can't even afford to carry out Ombudsman recommendations?

(* PS - the answer to the 'competition' is now available here.)