Canal in Tipton locked off for over a week leaving boater stuck.

Express & Star

A boater is being left out in the cold as to why the Canal & River Trust have locked down the canal in Tipton. It's been over a week and all they will say is its a Police incident, but the Police have said to him they know nothing about it.

Transcript

00:00So we're here on the Birmingham New Line Canal and we're here with boater Chris.

00:04Hello sir. Hello. Chris, that's your boat back there, just fill us in, you've got a

00:09bit of a problem with it, you're quite keen to get to the boatyard half a mile

00:12down the road, what is that? I've got a hole in my boat, I've already booked the

00:20dry dock, I've been waiting here for a week now, I'm paying the dry dock 85

00:27pounds per day. So why are you not continuing through these locks down the

00:34way? Because of these things. Right and here's the problem, so the locks are

00:40currently out of order, padlocked, and how long have they been that way for Chris?

00:44A week you say? Yeah, I believe from six o'clock last Tuesday. Yeah, so you've

00:53obviously, you're getting, so you weren't informed that they were going to be

00:55closed were you? So you get in touch with British Waterways. Canal and River Trust.

01:00Canal and River Trust, sorry apologies, and what do they say then? It's a police

01:06incident and it's up to the police to give the permission, however the police

01:13don't know anything about it. You've contacted the police haven't you, they said

01:16well it's not on our logs. It's not on their logs and they haven't got the

01:21remit. So you contacted the fire? The fire brigade, they have got nothing on

01:26their logs and they cannot take the locks off. I've contacted my landlord

01:34Canal and River Trust and said I am desperate to get move this boat, the boat

01:38is sinking, I haven't had any sleep. Well that's it, because you're having to keep

01:42an eye on, yeah, resolve that. Fortunately my partner passed away, so I'm going

01:48through a grieving problem. Yeah. I've run out of water on the boat, domestic

01:55water. I mentioned that to Canal and River Trust and alright, God loved them. After a week

02:04they've just given me six bottles of water. Yeah. However I'm getting very

02:11tired. I've even said to Canal and River Trust, I'll take these padlocks off, I'll

02:17replace them. Get your boat through. I will replace the locks and they said if

02:23you do that, we're going to do you for criminal damage. You're going to be

02:28fined about two thousand quid and because I have then done criminal

02:33damage to Canal and River Trust property, they will not issue me a license to stay on

02:39the water. And this has been your life for 17 years isn't it, on the canal? Yes.

02:43Are you seeing things getting worse for life on the canal as a

02:49boater? Are these issues kind of becoming more and more? More and more. It's ironic.

02:55You go up north, it's worse again. Yeah. You'll look at bridges, you'll see

03:03bridges where there's cracks. That one, there's one down there. Yeah. And it's

03:10absolute, they're going to fall in. Yeah. There's lack of maintenance. Yeah. Lack of

03:16care. Well you were saying there's, they're meant to provide like facilities

03:20aren't they? Like cleaning, like shower facilities and stuff and there's some at

03:23the Black Country Museum for boaters and they're not working. How long is it

03:28they've not been working for Chris? Over two years. So you're left kind of in

03:33limbo aren't you? They can't tell you, they're not telling you why it's closed.

03:37They're just saying it's a police incident and that's as much as we can

03:42say. Is that what they're saying? That's correct. I've even rang up the

03:45Environmental Agency. They're saying they have got nothing but they are working,

03:50they are going to look at all their files and the thing that really

03:57concerns me, is it a health and safety issue? Well yeah because we're looking at

04:02the water and you know without being officially informed, but your guess is

04:06this is a pollutant issue yeah? Yeah but unfortunately you would expect to see

04:12dead fish. Okay yeah. And there's no dead fish. Yeah. Yeah. Because the water's

04:18definitely a funny colour isn't it? It's definitely a funny green. Yeah.

04:22But like you say, you know, your boat's sitting in the middle of it so if it is

04:26an environmental issue, a health issue in that respect, you'd quite like to know

04:32yourself. You know what I mean? Yeah but apparently they won't tell me. They can't

04:37go into details. Yeah. So you're just left in limbo at the minute then mate.

04:41You don't know if this is going to be opening one day, two days, a week, a month.

04:45You just don't know. Yep. And I'm running out of diesel. Yeah. I'm running out of

04:51patience. Yeah yeah. And I'm not having any sleep. Yeah. So they have said oh well

04:58why don't you go a different route along the way round but like we'll show

05:01some of the bits of the canal there. You know you've already got an issue with

05:04the bottom of your boat. You're booked in half a mile down the way. You know

05:09you don't want to be banging on to the bottom of another trolley or something

05:13else in the water. And that will then make the hole bigger and then my bilge pump won't be able to

05:17contain that amount of water. Yeah. And my boat will sink indefinitely. Yeah yeah.

05:22And there's no way. You know as you could see before with all the rubbish

05:30there. Yeah. Whatever else is going to be on the old line. A couple of years back I

05:36hit a sofa on the old line. No way. Took us four, CRT and myself, four hours to get

05:46the sofa off. And if there's a sofa down there which I'm not trusting that line

05:50at all. Yeah. Even my boat is gone. My home is gone. Yeah. And where, so where is it

05:57locked from then? So we're here by the old bush pub in Tipton, Factory Road and

06:01then if you go up the canal towards Wolverhampton. What kind of

06:06distance of stretch is unusable then sort of thing? Well there's no locks. So

06:15you could mostly hit Wolverhampton. Yeah. And is it locked off then at Wolves? It's

06:20locked off on the Wolves 21 flight. Yeah. Yeah. But that is down to they were

06:25repaired in a locked gate. Yeah. So the whole flight is shut. Yeah. Which is fair

06:29comment. Yeah. So does this, if you had a friend that come along and I said I'm

06:35thinking of getting a boat and doing the whole boat in life. I guess you'd, you'd

06:39just, your experience at the minute is you'd be a bit tempted to say

06:43well maybe just think twice about that. Yeah. This needs basically unfortunately

06:50the canal needs to be taken away from Canal and River Trust and given back to

06:57the state. Yeah. Well we wish you all the best in with your boat and getting on

07:02moving chap. All the best to you Chris. We're just at the back of the old bush

07:06pub here and we can see kind of the water's green. So, so if that's the issue

07:10they've blocked the locks that you need to get through. But you were saying the

07:13canal is actually, so to our left that's where you want to go. The Birmingham

07:18main line? Birmingham main line. Now that canal we can see stretching off, what's

07:24that one? That's the old line, Birmingham old line. And that's still open then? Yeah.

07:30So you can't get your head around if it's all, if it's about containing water

07:34then you know. Well this water then will flow, it will go all the way to Smethwick,

07:41come out at Smethwick locks and return to the main line, the new line. Yeah. So what

07:48is the point of securing the water when it, they're not doing anything? Yeah. You

07:55just made a very good point, if it is, because obviously they're not

07:58informing you what's going on, if it is because the water's polluted, which we

08:02can see it's definitely a funny green, what was the point you were making about

08:05dog walkers and so on? Dog walkers use the towpath a hell of a lot and some

08:10dogs love water, so you know a dog walker may throw a stick into the canal

08:16for the dog to fetch. Yeah. However if there is a contaminant it's putting the

08:23dog's safety at risk and it's also putting the dog walker, if there is any

08:30contamination and it touched, it could make them ill.

Category

Transcript

Recommended