Canal & River Trust Reviews 88

Canal trust have been asked seven months ago to extend a lease. Despite a complaint they are still unable to provide a time efficient service. We are very upset by this as it’s causing us financial and emotional distress.

Company needs to train drivers on how to drive!

Leaflet in newspaper. Naked pitch for bequests from wills. No! Very poor custodian for our canals etc. Positively more harm than good for fishermen. BWB were much better! Whose interests do they look after?
(BTW: Top cheese gets £215k p.a.).

Even D ick Turpin wore a mask.....£2000 for a licence. Then they close the canals for 7 months of the year (on various canals)and don't offer a partial refund. Call yourselves a charity....

What is the point in having rules regarding the mooring of barges on canals if the CRT does nothing about a large barge mooring for 6 weeks and pouring waste water into the waterway and leaving rubbish floating in bags tied to the barge. This is not at all environmentally friendly

Crazy how much money this charity is wasting .... There making me feel so terrible everyday to a point I've moved off my boat to sell up

Spent nearly a year on CRT mooring on the cut, not cheap to start with. Then paid £50 deposit for a car park gate key only to find a week later the anglers club gate twenty yards along to be secured by a piece of twine. "We never said it was secure" doesn't cut it I'm afraid, the gate key making it implicit that the car park is locked. One nicked tank of diesel later and needless to say we've moved elsewhere...

The towpath at the side of our boat was supposed to be lit (few and far between as it was) however the light directly outside our boat was out for the duration despite being reported twice.

When we signed up for the CRT mooring there was a facilities block nearly, shower, toilet and elsan point. This was closed without explanation or apology a few months later, nothing but a closed sticker on the locked door.

Despite our paying up month on month, boats on the 48 hour moorings further up constantly overstayed, not by a day or two but months on end. Having questioned the local CRT manager and head office about it we were told that steps were being taken. They weren't, absolutely nothing was done in all our time there. It's quite irksome that while we shelled out month after month others got away with it to the n'th degree with no fear of recrimination.

As others have said, it appears that to ordinary boaters the CRT are the most uncharitable charity there is. We feel we got nothing for our substantial mooring fee, ripped off in fact and a polar opposite to the private mooring where we moved to for only a few quid more.

"Yes but we maintain the waterways don't we" they whined. You might, but it's a painfully slow process looking at the state of the place. Our access road was used as storage for any amount of equipment at the far end, all open to the public and a danger as such in itself. Pity those caught up in recent high-profile events cutting off waterways completely.

No, I'm afraid my opinion of the CRT has changed over the last year from that of a beleaguered institution just doing it's best to that of an absolute disgrace. For the money they charge, mooring fees as well as canal and river licence, it's shameful.

This company started collecting direct debit payments from my bank account without my knowledge twice a month (!) and has done very well for itself at my expence. I reported it to my bank.
I advice to be vigilant if/when dealing with it.

What will it take for the ttust to protect walkers, runners and families from the aggressive nature of the increasing numbers of cyclists the towpath?
This group of users feel impowered to travel at speed and close to pedestrians, expecting them to strp aside for them.
Cyclists constantly complain about drivers dangering them, yet this group endanger other towpath users.
In conclusion a serious accident is imminent! Police behaviours

The darker side of CRT
Electro fishing again to kill the Zander passing 240 volts through the water which electrocutes every living thing below the surface and our Pike are spawning at the moment being fried whilst trying to pro create
It isn’t working and causes a Zander boom because the big ones aren’t eating the small ones
Zander aren’t an invasive species they are established now and have been since the late 1700’s
It costs 80,000 quid per year they take revenue from the fishing clubs killing the very fish they fish for it is extremely cruel and has to stop
John Ellis (head of fisheries CRT) and his nephew Ralf Thomas (Zander killer )have a right dodgy deal going
They also remove any large fish like carp pike and tench to stock elsewhere using our canals as breeding pools (witnessed) they are out on the Ashby canal at the moment which is a sssi section no has caught a fish for 5 weeks since they did this area by me
Both English nature and the environment agency have asked for it to stop as it is cruel and isn’t working and to spend their money elsewhere
Stop frying our canals
Matt

The most uncharitable charity ever. They bully boaters, wrongfully take boats and then refuse to even open discussions about it. Destroy the boat without right. Lie about people on boats. They act as judge, jury and executioner without anyone holding them to account. They have sold off historically important buildings and land that as a charity they should have been preserving. They've sold off assets that made them income, the revenue only temporarily propping them up (hmmm I wonder if the highest paid at C&RT have any links to any proprty companies developing the sites they have sold off??). No pro-active maintenance. Boat licence costs escalating beyond what is reasonable. Wasting money by having 'preferred contractors' that they sub work out again and again. The management of the CRT have little knowledge of canals and the people on them. Not fit for purpose.
Oh, and they owe me £4k for the boat they stole, yet refused to discuss.

I resent being told the wrong information about the feeding of geese on the canal.As a retired person being told by some young fundraiser that "she doesn't like them sh....t....g on her head I find that quite unacceptable and offensive and a poor attitude from someone representing the trust.

The Canal & River Trust is failing to properly monitor and enforce the 14-day mooring rule in Bradford on Avon. Boats are clearly overstaying for long periods, effectively turning visitor moorings into permanent ones.

This has led to canal users leaving cars parked on nearby residential streets for weeks at a time, causing ongoing problems for local residents and reducing already limited parking.

Those who follow the rules are disadvantaged, while inaction from the Trust allows the situation to continue. Until proper enforcement is visible, confidence in the Trust’s management of the area remains very low.

The main question is where to begin.

Wholesale closure of facilities; privatisation of some facilities; failing infrastructure; the summer drought; Boat Licence Team a shambles; evidence of money laundering ("and it wouldn't be the first time"); trying to get a licence yet the Boat Licence Team locks you out; corporate spin that is pretty impressive (if it wasn't for the fact that it is usually a pack of lies, and extremely good at sidestepping the core issues); accounts that show 87% of the organisation's costs go into a black hole called "maintenance" about which they refuse to answer questions; boat licence review that makes it clear that they are trying to get rid of the itinerant boat dwelling community; legal action that leaves people "stood on the towpath with nothing but the clothes they stand up in" or "bailiffs refused to call an ambulance when the person having their boat seized suffered a heart attack and had open heart surgery in hospital immediately after".. it goes on an on and on.
Meanwhile enforcement is operated in a manner that makes it clear that this bunch of charlatans are simply gunning for the itinerant boat dwelling community - Q: why? A: probably to make the canal system recreational only. They have been at that since 1990. The one good bit of this organisation is the Welfare Team. Well done you guys. Tough job.
This needs a public inquiry and potentially boat licencing for "continuous cruisers" (95% of who also live on their boats) to be taken over to something else - maybe Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) - like the DHSS was in the late 1980s (if an organisation is that broken that it has essentially "failed" the only thing left to do is shut it down). Except the minister wants nothing to do with it. So what next?

Absolutely awful corrupt organisation- the management are disgraceful

I wrote to CRT after a Parking Ticket Machine at Foxton Locks accepted my money but did not register receipt. Despite appeal I was subsequently fined £80 by the Car Park Operator for non payment. I took up with the CRT who acted promptly and initiated a repayment of the fine by the Operator. I was very impressed by their intervention and professionalism.

Horrible bullies and by that I mean management. Not a good place to work. Very clicky up higher in the management sector. Breach alot of H&S policies they so proudly advertise.

my mother and I would like to say massive thankyou to Georgina(regional operations manager)and John (contract manager)for overseeing project of clearance of vegetation adjacent to my mothers property and repairs to garden fence.Project expertly managed.Thanks to Ryan snd colleagues for carrying out work to high standard.Finally thanks to John(contracts manager) and the trust volunteers for painting the fence aswell.
All your efforts are very much appreciated.
Thank you so much.
Norma&Angus Grieve

Dreadful organisation who are running the canals into the ground and who couldn't careless about the boaters who pay a licence all they care about is there begging bowl canals are in a shocking state in many parts .

I am extremely disappointed with my experience as a customer of RCR. I signed up for their Silver Membership expecting reliable emergency assistance — especially for serious issues like a gas leak. When I called in an emergency, it took five days before an engineer came out, leaving me in an unsafe and unacceptable situation.

Despite this, I was told over the phone that my Silver Membership would be kept and the callout fee refunded. Now I’ve been informed that my membership is being cancelled, and the service I paid for was not delivered in the way it should have been.

Looking at their website, I see they have just increased all membership prices. The CEO was abrupt and rude to me over the phone, showing no concern at all that I had a gas leak — not the kind of customer service I expected from a company presenting itself as a rescue service. They should not portray themselves as being charitable or associated with charities when my experience was anything but charitable.