Thursday, February 17, 2011

A Water Closet

A rose by any other name..... I wonder why Towpath Talk is referring to ‘British Waterways’, when under new management, as ‘New Waterways Charity’ when the name is not yet decided. At the moment you may well think that the canal system is a Water Closet; somewhere to dump rubbish.
It was while staying in Rugeley that we saw a bonfire burning late at night. It was near the edge of the canal and some of the rubbish ended up in the water with a big splash. The general public it seems are intent on ‘loosing’ their unwanted by spreading it about the countryside and in the waterways.
Massive cleanups by various voluntary organisations do their very best but it seems they have to keep doing it. A clean sweep is very much required within those organisations that claim to be looking after our waterways. Volunteers already do their bit but there really is a need to employ lock keepers and lengthmen with the local knowledge to properly look after our waterway system.
Redundancies are happening at the wrong end of British Waterways in an attempt to save money. That approach is clearly not working. One man at the top costs much more than one at the bottom, but the ones at the bottom are worth a lot more. It is not a WC that we need, it is people who care and know how to look after the waterways.

1 comment:

Alf said...

Well said !