Bruce wrote: I had a rant on the blog yesterday about the three bollards per narrow lock idiocy, which made me wonder if anyone has any clue why BW thought this was such a good idea. They are all over the Delph 9 and Stourbridge 16, and seem to be spreading from there onto the Staffs and Worcs.
(see http://nbsanity.blogspot.com/) I can't recall any serious account of the genesis of it - what's the point? I asked Jim Stirling (used to be BW Scotland Director but is now Technical director of BW) why BW was installing what we thought were unnecessary bollards on narrow locks (we had just done the Llangollen). His reply was that they were there to help shorter boats which might surge back and forwards in a lock - he mentioned GRP cruisers. It is a H & S issue apparently. Ann We have just cruised up the South Oxford and there are newly installed bollards at each lock and are all of the cast metal type (most are covered with brown sacking). on a slightly different topic .... If BW is concerned about Health and Safety issues, when are they planning to cut the vegetation from the waters edge, when the towpath grass is cut, so that you don't need knee length jackboots and a machete to moor up? ... We have seen several grass cutting teams at work, along the towpaths as we have been cruising. The towpaths are nice and short for all the *non paying* public to use (walkers and cyclists). I wonder when BW are going to look after us, the license paying customers? (Customers definition .... someone who pays for a service or goods) John and Caroline nb Charlotte Rose currently at Rugby [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
