Good News Day

After the disappointment of yesterday's review of the Northampton Arm, we continued in making revised appointments and diary plans.

So it was more than a surprise that Mike received a phone call just after 2 pm from his contact at CaRT Customer Services. She wanted to let us know as soon as possible, and before the news was formally announced, that CaRT have had second thoughts (no doubt after an ear bashing from some quarters!) and that there would be a further two day window for 'essential' travel on Tuesday 21 Oct and the following day.

From the official notice that came out shortly afterwards, it seems that someone has now thought to look at the previous two day window in September and assess what  impact it had on the Grand Union to which it is attached. It seems that perhaps assumptions had been made that were not fully supported by the facts!

As our experience back in early July (see) showed, locks 3 and 4 have a real problem that means that, almost everyday, staff have to begin their shift by running water down the upper part of the flight to ensure sufficient depth in these early pounds for boats of even moderate draft to get over top cills! Pity that repairs to these gates do not yet seem to have made it sufficiently far up the priority list to be included in this winter's programme. On the other hand, traffic levels are modest - a case of 'if you do not use it, you will lose it' perhaps?

The notice does not indicate a night time closure on the Tuesday night which is perhaps a surprise as that is when much of the water loss occurs. We will be interested to see how many staff and/or volunteers are deployed to assist boats through. We did also hear from another boater at White Mills who came down in the previous opening that the weed situation was pretty dire. It is generally an issue but with no traffic for most of the summer, the weeds have had no competition. So we expect several visits to the weed hatch at least in the lower, longer, pounds.

In any event there was much rejoicing in this household at the news even though, when the euphoria wore off, we began to realise just how much we now have to organise to get to the Rothersthorpe flight by the first open date. At White Mills we are two or three days and eight locks away from Northampton, but not as onerous as some stretches. There are several guillotine gates yet to pass thorough but, in practice, as long as they are mechanised - they are - then they do not take much different total effort in comparison with locks which have pointed gates at both ends.