Dissatisfied With BWB?

Keith Arthur has suggested clubs abandon there leases with British Waterways and instead fish those waters for free. He argues that BW can't bailiff those waters (canals) and that, of late, very little of their revenue from angling goes back into the sport. Anyone feel the same, or have any negative dealings with BW?

BW were very supportive over the idiots fishing the wall at Hazelford and did contract someone to be on call to us to stop it. Their action was successful.

It has to remembered that they are primarily a boating/navigation body, with little interest in fishing.
Should we expect more?

If you pay them tens of thousands of pounds rent over the years I reckon you might want a certain amount of reinvestment or interest Tony.
They were bound to show prompt interest in the situation at Hazleford if people were putting their own lives at risk on their property.

If you pay them tens of thousands of pounds rent over the years I reckon you might want a certain amount of reinvestment or interest Tony.
They were bound to show prompt interest in the situation at Hazleford if people were putting their own lives at risk on their property.

yes, I think we should expect more, simply because we pay for the lease.
They are primarily a boating/navigagation body, from which they do get a lot of revenue.

The speed of the boats are not monitored properly (4mph I think or no white water) at the front of the boat gives a good indication.

Mooring on the towpath side is limited to no more than either overnight or 24 hours.
There has many a match been ruined because of the flaunting of this rule, but still nothing is done about it.
I have kept records of illegally moored boats, and passed them onto the canal company but still nothing gets done. They do not police it themselves.

My favourite gripe is that some years ago, bicycles were banned from various stretches of canal, because I was told when I complained that the towpaths were not built for cyclists and were not deemed safe, (potholes etc) Fair enough then, as I was told by the canal company that towpaths would be repaired, and also any metal rings that the boats tie up to would be removed.
Their is one particular pothole that creeps out onto the towpath, I reported that five years ago and still nothing has been done.

I am aware why bycycles were banned, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the safety of the cyclists or pedaestrians, or of any insurance claim that a cyclist might put in against the canal company.

I thought that if a body such as the canal company made a rule, then they would be responsible for enforceing it.

Chub King
As an Angler and a professionally qualified Ecologist, I have two gripes with BW locally on the Rochdale Canal (Manchester/Oldham area).

Angling
RC since the mid fifties had cessed to be navigable, as a result the fish stocks built to very health levels in all lengths, with some very fine quality fish of most species. Then 5 years ago BW through it Trust (The Waterways Trust) bought it from the private owner the Rochdale Canal Company, to reopen it for boating. The following Councils were supportive of this move Manchester City Council, Oldham MBC and Rochdale MBC pontificating as they always do about, Waterside regeneration, boosts to local economises, jobs and how the residents will all benefit from such resurrection.

Locally there were but a few voices of decent to the plans, mine being one of them. BW?s PR machine went in to overdrive selling the plan to the residents about how it would make their lives much improved?.. and there would fishing on their doorstep???? What they didn?t promise the residents was unreal!

To top it all they, the Waterways Trust, received 23 million quid from the National lottery to reopen it.

4 years ago it reopened to the usual fanfare with the usual suspect Great and the Good attending it. Within weeks the local scroats had learned that if they took a large movable spanner, they could open the sluice gates at night and dewater a length and cause flooding to the houses near the city centre, which are below canal level. Those house have been flooded so many times, you think they were the lost city of Atlantis.

As a result of this action the fish in the 100 or so lengths have been pushed down the canal to the point where they are now swimming in the Irwell and the Mersey. Then there are the breaches in the canal banks that have most likely been caused by boat wash eroding the bank away.
Recently in the local paper there was a letter from Troydale Anglers, a club who BW helped set up, criticising them for the loss of fish from the stretches they control. Troydale Anglers worked dammed hard to get grant funding for the stocking of those fish, and again they?re swimming in the Erwell.

I have lost count the number of times the 10 or so stretches near me have been dewatered through vandalism or the incompetence of BW, to the point that I know phone the EA every time, and report them for wilful destruction of fish.
God it doesn?t take a bloody genius to come up with a device to stop the scroats opening the sluice gates with a spanner!!!

Ecology
RC was scheduled 12 months before hand as a SSSI because of the rare water plants it contained and a colony of native crayfish in the Rochdale area.
My main concern as an ecologist was that these plants would be lost through boat wash uprooting them and the turbidity of the water stopping photosynthesis taking place.

They appointed an ecologist, Nick Berkingshaw, to assess the ecological impact and his conclusion was that there would be minimal impact on the plants. I had many conversations with him over the time period of reinstatement of the canal, pointing out to him, a precise location of a plant that didn?t appear on his assessment, which is one of the rarest, if not the rarest, in the UK, Bladderwort.
He said that every effort would be taken to protect this plant and the others from damage, needless to say they didn?t, and it was the first to disappear. 4 years on and the rich beds of rare plants have all but gone, through a combination of what I said would happen, and the constant desiccation of the plants through dewatering.

As to the Native crays, I have had no reports of anyone seeing them since BW dredged the section they were in, bank to bank!

And what has English Nature done over this Environmental vandalism carried out by BW well Jack shit!

So there you have it CK, the caring environmental protectionism of flora and fauna of British Waterways on the Rochdale Canal.

imo,bw have done nothing for the two clubs that pay ?11000 for the fishing rights on the taunton to bridgwater canal in somerset.
over the last 12 years or so,they have gone from one extreme to the other,ie:when the canal was restored to enable boats to once again navigate the whole length,the vast majority of reed beds were removed and the bed of the canal scraped bare,the canal resembled a freshly dug ditch,with no refuge or cover for fish and other aquatic life.the weed has been cut every spring(when the fish are spawning),using a floating combine harvester type of cutter,several anglers witnessed the cutter ploughing through shoals of spawning tench and bream.the past two years has seen the opposite happen,nothing has been done to maintain the towpath banks or weed,resulting in the banks being over grown with nettles,ragwort etc and the water being blocked with blanket weed.the only maintenance has been on the towpath,which has been turned into a cycleway,where numbers of idiots use it as a mountainbike racetrack.some dog owners use it as a dog loo.bw promised that boats,cyclists etc would be policed by canal wardens,over the last ten years,i`ve yet to see one.
for once,i agree with keith arthur,clubs should terminate their leases,perhaps then,bw might start to listen to angling clubs concerns.