Locked into a communication cycle & going nowhere?

Years ago I ran a higher education Master of Arts degree in communications. This week has brought home to me again just how vital good, clear communication is to us all.

In the mass media we’ve seen again the resulting maelstrom of rumour and speculation that takes off when hard facts are not communicated clearly. People interpret what they hear in their own ways colouted by their own knowledge and experiences. Communication isn’t just about how and what is delivered but how that is received.

Here on Narrowboat Preaux this week we’ve been both poor receivers and experienced good and poor communication.

This as you’d expect has resulted in frustration, irritation, wasted energy and mistrust as well as relief, appreciation and clarity.

We started last weekend waiting to hear news of the damaged lock that was stopping us getting through Manchester onto the Rochdale Canal, a cross-Pennine route much heralded for breathtaking scenery but one which has faced significant issues of vandalism and water shortages over the years.

Our aim in travelling the Rochdale this year en route to our eventual destination of Ripon (the northernmost end of navigable waterways) was in part, a fear that such were the Rochdale’s reported issues over past years, if Canal and River Trust had to save funds they might look at closing one of the three transPennine routes. The Rochdale could be a likely candidate. Use it or lose it they tell us, so we want to use it.

But we couldn’t even get onto the Rochdale. We subscribe to a Notices and Stoppages service delivered via email by Canal and River Trust (CRT). You select the waterways you are interested in (or towpaths if you want to walk or cycle) and any issues appear. Seems an excellent use of technology but one of the keys is that any communications system is only as good as the quality of the communications being communicated.

Stoppage notice no. 1 about Lock 87 came a week last Thursday. At the beginning it appeared to us and others, that this [and indeed on a subsequent lock stoppage which became equally important to us and was reported as the same issue] was going to be a short stoppage. In reality it then appeared that perhaps CRT were falling into the quagmire of telling people what they thought they wanted to hear, and diluting the pill rather than delivering the full bad news. Or perhaps we had been interpreting the communication with what we wanted to hear, or maybe those on site were telling the comms team what they thought they wanted to hear, or indeed maybe the comms team weren’t asking all the right questions. The possibilities for a shortfall in communication are legion – as anyone in any business knows.

Lock 87 which would be part of our route through Manchester onto the Rochdale Canal had, we were told last week, been investigated by a team including engineers so they knew what the problem was (a heel post becoming disconnected from a gate). Email 1 reported it in such a way it sounded manageable and repairable and set a date for the next update – a good thing to do.

Five days later the update arrived finally at 5pm in the evening on the day promised. It said that they needed more specialist contractors to explore the issue and so they’d be on site later in the week. That didn’t seem in line with what we had first heard via email but much closer to what people from boats close to the site who had spoken to CRT staff at the damaged lock had initially been told. It seemed that the initial message had been watered down.

The second email made clear the issue was sounding like far from a quick fix, and we, along with many others were moored on the Bridgewater Canal, were now vainly waiting to head up the Rochdale.

The Bridgewater Canal is a private canal, and the reciprocal agreement with CRT is that a CRT licence holder can notify the Bridgewater that they wish to navigate their waters and do so for 7 days without incurring additional charge. Then they must wait 30 days before returning for another 7 day period, or start paying a charge which we understood to be £40 a week. So, if Lock 87 was going to take some weeks as now looked likely. Between email 1 and email 2 several boaters had outstayed their 7 days on the Bridgewater Canal but there had been no recognition at that stage from CRT that as the problem was due to a failure of their system, they had reached some agreement with the private canal company to mitigate the problem for boaters.

An email to the interim Director of CRT’s North West region on behalf of ourselves and other boaters in this situation resulted in an impressively rapid and unambiguous response, both from him explaining he had asked someone to come back to us asap, and an equally rapid email from that someone tasked with resolving the issue. The latter email was able to be posted on relevant boater social media sites to support those facing overstay charges to be part of a negotiated solution. CRT also came up with a suggestion to move waiting boats through one locked lock into a space between locks (a pound) in the centre of Manchester. We could all sit there together until repairs were complete.

That would move us off the Bridgewater by a matter of a foot or so, but living cheek by jowl with other boaters in such close proximity in the centre of a city, unable to move forwards or backwards or have hot water for showers (generated by moving the boat in our case) and waiting for however long it took to complete repairs sounded nothing short of a nightmare scenario to us. We knew some boats were already locked in but believed they might not be permanently occupied. We declined the offer of imprisonment and decided that as we were unable to make the 8 mile, 6 lock journey from our then Bridgewater mooring onto the Rochdale, we would move the long way round – 98 miles and 85 locks.

We made it off the Bridgewater just in time to meet our 7 day access limit.

We knew there was a lock (No 57) which had a problem en route on the Trent and Mersey, and we knew of lock flight restriction times of use because of a lack of water on the Macclesfield and Peak Forest Canals, but we thought it was doable, particularly as we’d heard boaters near the Lock 57 issue had been told – wait for it…. “That a straightforward fix had been manufactured and would be installed within days.” Guess what? Communications were a little out. A business boat owner who spoke to those on site reported a different situation as he had hire boats and holiday makers stuck beyond the lock. The minor repair originally suggested was apparently a more major repair which could take some weeks. Boaters were still heading towards the lock from both sides in the belief that it would be fixed by the time they got there.

This miscommunication or misinterpretation of communication is causing problems, yes there’s the delay and the hassle of trying to find a route which is open and navigable, but if not more serious is the lack of trust created in the communications. Each message now needs to be interrogated – we can’t take anything at face value.

It isn’t just us, continuous cruisers who, to be honest, could shuttle between locations sorting out waste and water en route, but there are the businesses that depend on it. Holiday boat hire companies who are having to spend time and money shuttling holiday makers to boats in locations they didn’t want them to be, shuttling staff to boats away from base to clean and prepare them for new customers. Boat sharers have to get back to base to hand over to the next occupants. Work boats conducting repairs and maintenance or commercial working boats ferrying diesel, coal and gas – all are impacted by not only stoppages but the communications around them.

For all of us, it is better to know the potential extent of a problem from the beginning. Give us the worst scenario and then we’ll be ecstatic when it isn’t as bad as thought rather than be too optimistic first off. Some CRT staff, those allegedly undertaking the first evaluations, are also losing face because it appears from the communications that they aren’t able or properly qualified to  initially assess situations properly.

Lock 57’s latest update was due on Thursday 13. We bet the updated notice would come out at 5pm – just as everyone is leaving the office. Just what happened with the last one! Cynical? Yes. It pinged in at 17.03.

It sent us into a fever of interrogating what was set, and planning once more. It’s a challenge we’ve set ourselves up the Rochdale to Yorkshire for the winter. Perhaps it will take us until winter to get there!

Currently all 3 routes over the Pennines are blocked. Middlewich was our last chance to turn away from the blockages, turning down the Middlewich Branch towards the Shropshire Union which we did. Many boaters, private or holiday, we met this week have decided to go down the Middlewich Branch to the Shroppie and then off to either the Llangollen or Chester. All are fluent on the woes of Lock 57!

We are still determined to head for the Rochdale, the question is how? Despite everything I’ve said about CRT communications, we have to believe them, to keep the faith. We feel we should get through this stoppage on the Trent and Mersey in the next two weeks (accepting there may well be another stoppage, another lock broken somewhere else in that time). We also know (thanks social media) that another boat we met up with on the Ashby in winter is waiting at the damaged lock, and they say there’s a good pub not far away so the delay won’t be too much of hardship.

Our next considering is will we then be able to get through the Macclesfield and Peak Forest flights before water shortages stop the limited flight usage all together? CRT were saying 31 July was when they would close the flights completely and to be honest if I had to be trapped somewhere, the Macclesfield is quite lovely.  We need to travel to a family birthday and very sadly a family funeral in the coming weeks, so we have to factor in safe places to stay and days with no travelling.

At the minute we think we can manage it all – it’s going to be a few slow short days followed by some long days of long distances with many locks in whatever the weather brings, but we will coddywomple on.

 Our goal remains to get up to the Great Wall of Tod by the end of the first week in August. Will we? Who knows? Having got there will we ever get back? We’ll let you know – concisely, clearly and accurately we hope!