The Floater September 2017

September 2017 - C&RT’s Waterways Partnerships are now in the sixth year of operation. The ten regional based Partnerships have between them around 100 members. However, over 50 members including all but one chair are due to step down in the next few months on expiry of office.

September 2017 - In the past boating groups have been pretty good at direct action politics but in recent years political action has been restricted to the formal dances beloved of professional lobbying firms with C&RT and the IWA wining and dining MPs and senior civil servants.

September 2017 - Once again the Inland Waterways Association is berating the Environment Agency in the East of England, this time over the sale of assets as Peter Underwood reports.

September 2017 - A new survey shows some GP practises seem to be ignoring official NHS guidelines and refusing to accept liveaboard CCers and their families. The figures also suggest the refusals are deterring other boaters from even trying, as Alec Wood discovered,

September 2017 - Rickmansworth's annual festival is a high spot every year for hundreds of boaters rumours have been rife that its famous boat Tug of War would not be happening in 2018 but Peter Underwood – himself a big fan of the event – has some reassuring news.

September 2017 - Peter Underwood has been asking Canal & River Trust why it is taking so long to publishing illustrative cruising patterns for boat families with children at school – but there is no coherent answer.

September 2017 - Has C&RT mislead us regarding the number of boaters who attended stage 2 licence consultation workshops? Allan Richards investigates and finds discrepancies in the figures given the Trust and Involve, the charity who ran the workshops.

September 2017 - Colin Ogden's army – the Owd Lanky Boaters – has been storming through the undergrowth at Tewitfield Locks, near Carnforth, where they are working with Canal & River Trust to restore the locks, and Peter Underwood reports that the project is developing an unexpected atmospher

September 2017 - The Waterways Ombudsman, currently financed by Canal & River Trust, with two out of five committee members appointed by them, is now aiming to extend itself to other waterways despite boaters' doubts about independence, as Peter Underwood reports.

September 2017 - Is IWA's blistering attack on the Environment Agency hiding its own inaction over many years? Welches Dam Lock was stanked off 2006 preventing its use. However, the IWA, as a campaigning organisation appears to have done little over the years to address this issue.

September 2017 - With boaters questioning on social media why C&RT spent £900,000 less on dredging last year and the upcoming Annual Meeting, Allan Richards takes a look at what the last four Annual Reports tell us about the Trust's spend on maintenance.