The waterways have a foliage problem. Inevitably, every autumn trees and shrubs spread their seeds, and some of them land and germinate at the edges of the waterway. Once upon a time there were lock keepers and lengthsmen who would tend their allotted bit of waterway, cutting off or pulling up interlopers before they could get established. The age of the accountant put an end to such labour intensive practises and regular tending of a loved length of waterway was replaced with occasional visits by teams of weed whackers and sprayers. Modern management don't like to employ people if they can possibly help it, so employees have been replaced with contractors, and, with the waterway grant support fast diminishing, their visits have become less and less frequent.
The problem affects both rivers and canals. It would be impossible to use the towpath for its intended purpose on most rivers nowadays as there is a veritable forest between path and water. Horse haulage or bowhauling is getting increasingly difficult on the canals because of the size of the bushes on the towpath edge. On the outside sizeable trees are forcing boats to go so close to the towpath that they stem up. Low branches sweep loose articles off boat roofs. One of our volunteers had what could have been a serious accident when a branch caught in his lifejacket and nearly flung him off the stern of the motor into the path of the butty.
At the moment we have no functioning motor boat, so, we have to bowhaul. The towpath edge trees are a big problem.
With a bowhauled Hazel trip coming up, we decided to tackle the foliage between Asda and the winding hole at Eli Whalley's that had been a problem on the last such trip. While I was using Facebook etc to organise a team, Nessie decided to just go and do it himself. When the team assembled the job was already done, so we decided to go and tackle the bushes beyond Walk Bridge, on the way towards Guide Bridge.
As we crossed the junction bridge, who should show up but the contractors with their big industrial strimmers. They went ahead of us whizzing off the tops of the plants and leaving the devastated brash in the water or on the towpath. If a bush extended too far out into the waterway they just left most of it.
Such treatment causes long term problems for the infrastructure, and short term problems for any hauled boats. If you're bowhauling or horse hauling a boat, bushes are bad, but truncated bushes are worse.
A medium sized bush will bend beneath a rope as the boat is hauled along and eventually release it. A truncated stem of such a bush will snag a line and bring the boat completely to a stop.
If trees are allowed to grow, then cut back, they will throw out new shoots and grow again next year. with each year's growth the uncut portions, and the roots grow bigger. The strength of them is so great that they will force masonry apart, the eventual repair of which will be very expensive. A stitch it time saves nine.
Here's some pictures of the mess they made.
Our team followed after the contractors, cutting back the trees right to the roots and making nice habitat piles in the hedge from the offcuts. It was very slow and hard work though. We only got about 50 yards.
Once upon a time we did regular working parties for CRT. This stopped because of a combination of things. One was their excessive bureaucracy and their ban on us pulling rubbish out (no-one seems to know about this now, but it happened. You can't pull shopping trolleys out because it might disturb the wildlife). Then came covid, and we've generally struggled for volunteers since. It would be good to get back into it, particularly dealing with foliage and sunken rubbish. It would also be nice if someone other than me did the organising!