Love him or hate him, the CEO of the Canal and River Trust has always been approachable.
We first met Richard Parry at an invited meeting in Birmingham soon after he took the helm of the new Canal and River Trust somewhere towards the middle/end of 2013. Up until then he had been mainly tinkering around with trains (London Underground) for the previous twenty years. Since then we've bump into each other for a chat half a dozen or so times a year, he's genuinely interested to hear of any issues we have during our extensive travels around the system.
However after five years of chatting is he the best person to put the vitally needed changes into action? I'm still not sure. His priority's seem to be everywhere but boating and now the navigation authority is re branding as a waterways and wellbeing trust I can't see it getting better. All a bit wishy washy and corporate bull***te for me (cringeworthy strap lines here).
At the excellent Erewash Canal Preservation & Development Association (doesn't quite trip off the tongue does it?) 50th anni back in May we had a catch up with and informed Richard of our plans and raised a few (more) issues regarding the national problem of the bottom of the canal being too close to the top. Or woefully inadequate system of canal dredging that has seen the pitiful amount of 60 miles of 2000 dredged in 2014 to 30 last year and gone from a yearly dredging plan to one that is of spot dredging the bits that are most complained about.
After a draining and very hot weekend at the festival (incidentally we are the first ever Roving Canal Traders to trade from the Nottingham Canal at Erewash, cos it's only one boats length and a small basin long), we bumped and ground our way back down the Erewash canal to the wide and deep river Trent and onto another far more exciting meeting!
We first met Richard Parry at an invited meeting in Birmingham soon after he took the helm of the new Canal and River Trust somewhere towards the middle/end of 2013. Up until then he had been mainly tinkering around with trains (London Underground) for the previous twenty years. Since then we've bump into each other for a chat half a dozen or so times a year, he's genuinely interested to hear of any issues we have during our extensive travels around the system.
However after five years of chatting is he the best person to put the vitally needed changes into action? I'm still not sure. His priority's seem to be everywhere but boating and now the navigation authority is re branding as a waterways and wellbeing trust I can't see it getting better. All a bit wishy washy and corporate bull***te for me (cringeworthy strap lines here).
At the excellent Erewash Canal Preservation & Development Association (doesn't quite trip off the tongue does it?) 50th anni back in May we had a catch up with and informed Richard of our plans and raised a few (more) issues regarding the national problem of the bottom of the canal being too close to the top. Or woefully inadequate system of canal dredging that has seen the pitiful amount of 60 miles of 2000 dredged in 2014 to 30 last year and gone from a yearly dredging plan to one that is of spot dredging the bits that are most complained about.
After a draining and very hot weekend at the festival (incidentally we are the first ever Roving Canal Traders to trade from the Nottingham Canal at Erewash, cos it's only one boats length and a small basin long), we bumped and ground our way back down the Erewash canal to the wide and deep river Trent and onto another far more exciting meeting!
Hi James and Debbie got over here and subscribed, not sure of the font here though I find it harder to read.
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Ade
Cheers Ade - removed Italics to see if that's improved how the posts read.
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