Incorrect stoppage notice on Lapworth locks. Even the phone number is mis-typed.

Last week we came down the 19 frozen and snow covered Lapworth locks from Birmingham and I meant to mention the notice pinned to the balance beams of lock 20, the bottom lock of the flight if arriving from the Grand Union.  I knew it to be untrue, having just arrived from the other direction but what would I be expected to do if I had just arrived to go up the flight?  Maybe walk 2 miles to the top, to verify it is possible to get through – as once committed to the flight there is no turning place until well after the top lock.  Maybe I should just assume it is OK in the absence of a lock and chain? Or maybe check Waterscape.com to find out whether there is really a stoppage?

Search results from Waterscape.com

Yes that’s what I did earlier in the trip.  No point in phoning British Waterways these days, as the stock answer is “have you checked Waterscape.com?”  I didn’t realise it at the time but by searching for stoppages on the Stratford Canal and CHANGING THE FROM DATE I had broken the search system, which then returned a long list of incorrect stoppages!  I couldn’t understand why boats had been arriving in Birmingham while I was seeing a long list of Lapworth stoppages for January to March.  And then the penny dropped.  The search results were showing me 2009 stoppages – I just hadn’t noticed the year until now!  I tried it again at Lapworth and got exactly the same incorrect results.

Today after complaining to British Waterways about this, I notice that the search results have been corrected, and indeed there is no way to search for 2009 stoppages deliberately so last week’s results can only have been the result of an error rather than finger trouble.

So back to the plot, the notice on the bottom gates of the flight is now totally inexplicable.  I wonder if it refers to the flight going down towards Stratford, which is indeed closed, although you wouldn’t be going up through lock 20 if taking that route.

So once again, no information would be so much better than half a story – if Waterscape.com didn’t exist and if someone had removed the notice from the lock when lock 19 was repaired ahead of schedule 2 weeks ago, then nobody would be any the wiser.  But as it stands BW are continuing to make demands of the user without having the systems to back them up themselves.  There is no excuse for returning old data from a website query, other than dodgy programming and lack of testing and the incorrect notice could have been removed by someone from the local BW Offices the day the locks reopened.  Its all of 200 yards from the lock to their front door.  They could do with typing practice too by the looks of it - even their own phone number has been mis-typed!  It should of course be 01827 252000.  I suggest we should all call them tomorrow.

Meanwhile theres no cruising log this weekend.  Looking at the rain, and the forecast for even more, I have decided not to move Zulu today but hopefully the weather will improve this week.

Dangerous sign on the Regents Canal

While I was working in Little Venice and I used to pass under this sign at Lisson Grove Estate on the Regents Canal half a dozen times a day. Always made me smile.

Self Service sign in use on the Thames

In the last 18 months, the Environment Agency has placed a sign at each end of every lock on the Thames to indicate whether a lock keeper is on duty.  It must have seemed like a good idea in the board room when a plain yellow circle on a white background was chosen to inform boaters that there was no lock keeper.

I wondered why some people then referred to the Thames being on Yellow Boards, even in mid summer.  Yellow Boards and Red Boards are normally displayed when the stream is rising, or strong stream warnings – a yellow or red sign is usually hung from the lock gates in a somewhat rustic style.  So yes, unless you have seen a real Yellow Board, the chances are that you may misinterpret the yellow circle are inevitable.

So over the summer every yellow board circle has been replaced with a blue circle with the words “Self Service” in bold white characters.  Now that makes sense but it would have been better to get it right first time.  The circles have been stuck on top of the old signs, so the cost is presumably not too much on this occasion so this pales into insignificance when looking at some of the British Waterways decisions costing hundreds of thousands. 

I wrote this in October but forgot to publish it; it still is a topical article and it reminds me that since the rain last week I have been receiving river status reports from the Environment Agency by email.  A far cry from hanging a swinging board on a lock gate, they now run a special website which describes the stream conditions at every lock.  Well worth bookmarking, and indeed well worth subscribing to the updates by email.

Heres the link : Environment Agency - River Thames Conditions