YP Letters: No such thing as '˜boating season' on canals

From: Malcolm Fielding, Secretary, South Yorkshire and the Dukeries, Inland Waterways Association.
By The Newsroom
Published 2nd Mar 2017, 12:17 BST
Updated 24th Mar 2017, 10:47 BST
The Calder and Hebble Navigation.The Calder and Hebble Navigation.
The Calder and Hebble Navigation.

IT was good to hear in your newspaper of the conclusion of the lock gate works at Figure of Three Locks at Thornhill on the Calder and Hebble Navigation.

I would like to take to task 
the comment when Eric Walker of the Canal and River Trust said that “the project will be 
finished ready for the boating season which gets underway in March”.

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The Inland Waterways Association, and the various societies and boat clubs in the country, take exception to this much used statement by CRT and other personnel of navigation authorities.

Boats are licenced for a year, meaning they can be used 
on the country’s waterways between January 1 and December 31 and not restricted to a supposed boating season – essential maintenance closures excepted.

If CRT and other authorities keep pushing the ‘boating season’ scenario, how long will it be before this becomes the accepted norm with boaters paying for a year-long licence but only able to use their boats from, say, March 1 to October 31?

Related topics:South Yorkshire