Support for older and vulnerable residents  

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As you may know, the Canal and Rivers Trust are proposing to automate all the bridges on the Gloucester/Sharpness Canal.  Boat users will have an App on their mobiles which will allow them to open the canal bridges remotely from their boats.  All the bridge keepers are to be made redundant or take early retirement.

 

The Canal and Rivers Trust will save £500,000 by getting rid of the bridge keepers but have not yet said how much it will cost them to automate the bridges.  Anyway everything you need to know is on their website www.canalrivertrust.org.uk/gsbridges 

 

My objections are that

• the bridge keepers are a safety net for both road and boat users – they ensure that traffic both over and under flows safely. 
• the bridges will take much longer to open and shut thus delaying motorists and emergency services.  (in summer they often wait until 3 or 4 barges are ready to go through before opening the bridge and letting them through en bloc) 
• the bridge men will all lose their jobs 
• the canal was dug for the use of commercial barges, and bridges put across it so that the Island residents could carry on crossing the canal as before.  Now the canal is only used for pleasure boats but they will have priority over everyday traffic of residents trying to get to work or go about their business. 
• this plan is purely a cost-cutting exercise and will benefit neither road nor boat users. 
• the head office is to be in Gloucester docks.  If a canal bridge breaks down at Sharpness it is going to take ages for an engineer to get there to fix it.  This is dangerous should an ambulance/policecar/fire engine be required. 
• our vicar finishes his service at Elmore or Longney at 1030 on a Sunday morning. He has to be in Hardwicke Church starting the next service at 11am.  The bridge keepers always make sure that the bridge is open for him at 1045!

If you would like to contact the Canal Trust with your thoughts/objections etc. here are the 2 options for giving comments listed below. 

 

Any comments or objections have to be made before the end of June.  

 

• Complete the online survey – click on the link on the webpage www.canalrivertrust.org.uk/gsbridges.  Or
• Print, complete and post the attached questionnaire.  Post it to:

Karen Morphet

Customer Support Co-ordinator

South Wales & Severn Waterways

Canal and River Trust  

The Dock Office 

Commercial Road 

Gloucester 

GL1 2EB