Canal & River Trust Reviews 

my mother and I would like to say massive thankyou to Georgina(regional operations manager)and John (contract manager)for overseeing project of clearance of vegetation adjacent to my mothers property and repairs to garden fence.Project expertly managed.Thanks to Ryan snd colleagues for carrying out work to high standard.Finally thanks to John(contracts manager) and the trust volunteers for painting the fence aswell.
All your efforts are very much appreciated.
Thank you so much.
Norma&Angus Grieve

Dreadful organisation who are running the canals into the ground and who couldn't careless about the boaters who pay a licence all they care about is there begging bowl canals are in a shocking state in many parts .

I am extremely disappointed with my experience as a customer of RCR. I signed up for their Silver Membership expecting reliable emergency assistance — especially for serious issues like a gas leak. When I called in an emergency, it took five days before an engineer came out, leaving me in an unsafe and unacceptable situation.

Despite this, I was told over the phone that my Silver Membership would be kept and the callout fee refunded. Now I’ve been informed that my membership is being cancelled, and the service I paid for was not delivered in the way it should have been.

Looking at their website, I see they have just increased all membership prices. The CEO was abrupt and rude to me over the phone, showing no concern at all that I had a gas leak — not the kind of customer service I expected from a company presenting itself as a rescue service. They should not portray themselves as being charitable or associated with charities when my experience was anything but charitable.

The CRT appear to be running the trust like all government agencies. In which they are wasteful, inefficient and reactive.

In the four years I have owned a boat I have witnessed such a decline in the canals where many need dredging, there’s lack of water, many of the towpaths are overgrown and some of the locks are appallingly bad with erosion and leaking or, are so flimsy they are about to fall apart. When a lock becomes inoperable then they become impassable for what seems ages.

I hear there’s a lack of money but our boat license goes up yearly. I have also witnessed the increase in boats which are not up to standard and very probably do not pay for a licence at all. So are we the mugs paying for those who do not comply?

I see rangers about but they seem to target the wrong boaters. Whilst the boats that are non compliant get a notice there are now many clogging up the waterways.

Yet CRT want to force continuous cruisers into marina’s that cost a huge fortune. Not fair, and it is certainly becoming a hobby for the affluent only, rather than a way of life as it has been for many.

The good bits in my opinion are when the CRT do a job it is always top notch and never botched. The volunteer’s also do a fantastic job without them, CRT would be in even more trouble.

Canal’s are a beautiful and a lovely part of the UK heritage but sadly like many things in our country is on the decline due to mismanagement and lack of investment.

Terrible organisation they do not care about the canal nor the boaters I’ve lived aboard for 10 years now and the system has just got worse and worse plus when you try to speak to the boat licensing team they just ignore your calls , it’s another charity that’s interested in profits for the CEO and not the waterway I hope they lose the contract

Run by ignorant, useless wastrels. Some really nasty, horrible people work for them. Some of the staff at the sharp end that actually do the work are great but management are truly spiteful people with no understanding of anything.
The shower near me was faulty and CRT refused to fix it, so local boaters fixed it. The area manager found out and ordered the staff to shut it! They put a 200 pound padlock with heavy duty hasp on! With the staffs time ,over 300 quid to shut a working shower to save some money!
So now I and many other boaters run our engines to get hot water. They have done this when the canal is shut and you can't get to the water point as it is now blocked by stuck boats and there is nowhere to turn around. So, I walk half a mile to get water in 5 litre containers in order to have a shower! Obviously some will be travelling further!

I am so pleased with the crt canal people who maintain the locks they was out to us in half hr when we was stuck in a lock with low waters also there was a log stuck in a paddle they was out and doing it with in a hr and they was a great tem well pleased to have them working on the crt

Apparently, without proof or my knowledge my vessel has been deemed unsafe and sinking by a mechanic that was assigned to my vessel by Canal River Rescue to start my boat.

Without proof or any communication to myself I am not able to use the Limehouse Lock to sail to see without hiring a marine mechanic to verify that my yacht is safe, to the Canal River Trust, which is breach of their policy. What I do not understand is when did they decide that after conducting pre-departure checks that I would be so irresponsible as to sail if an essential equipment wasn’t working. In all my five years of sailing I have never done this and I am not about to start now.

As with the CRT.. It was proved to be a frustrating day. AT 8.30 am I spoke to a CRT worker with regards to the pitiful low water pressure at Bridge 15, higher Poynton. This was reported by myself In October ,24.."I blame United Utilities". he said .That was it, yet another excuse.. later I phoned the Licensing dept. Due to change of circumstances. I had to deal with the most obstructive and almost rude young male individual who seemed to regard it as a crime for me to try to have my water license fee correctly reduced. He eventually said I could but not until the end of my annual license and then did all he could to not give the full address to write to. I finally wheedled it out of the complete jobsworth .Boating is difficult enough but dealing with moronic behaviour such as this adds to a once sunny day feeling overcast, John

Can't get through to anyone, they are happy to call you when they want something but never answer the call or try to sort the issue out. Disgusting behaviour trying to remove my only resident's/ place to live and have the cheek to say I'm not living there. I work every hour day and night! I'd love for them to come and do my job for one day while they sit in the office telling me I don't. Disgusting!

What went wrong this time ???!!!
1/My boat is moored off line , i only licence it for 3 of the summer months , just had a letter threatening with £150 fine , apparentky we NOW have to inform them that it is off line .
2/ going back 3 years , trent lock moorings on the corner of cranfleet cut , wall repaired & a large capping stone left in water , £220 for new prop £300+ for lift out
3/ going back 2 years , Ratcliffe lock on the river Soar unmovable due to lack of maintainance , laid up for weeks with bad back
4/ this year stuck for 2 hours in the floating weed on Notts canal , assisted by people living on unlicenced & obiously untested boats who smashed the gear lever off my enfield drive leg with a scaffold pole .
Selling boat , had enough

Their website is just for public consumption.In reality they couldn't care less about boat owners.Rude and unhelpful office staff.Needless top tier management.Canal system is worse under their management.A disgrace to the words "trust" and "charity".No suprise they haven't claimed this page!.Trust pilot needs negative scores for organisations like theirs.

Unprofessional

Amazing knowledge from the staff amazing skills driving the boat through the dark caves kids all loved learning all about why the canals amd caves are there even better that the black country museum is next door two days out in one loved it thank you all who made our day amazing

I’ve been on the cut for 5 years now and all I’ve seen is my license fee go up and up but yet less work being done by crt . Took away the rubbish point and toilet facilities in Berkhamsted. Crt staff just walk about all day doing nothing
Hedgerows over grown , locks broken etc
I’m at a point that if it carry’s on I’ll stop paying my license.
They say they are a charity but yet the ceo is on £300 grand a year … they are more like the tories than anything

I fell into a sink hole on the crow mill, Leicester town path, seriously damaging my foot, I have a 2 year old that I've been completely unable to do anything with, I was forced to give up my job, I amassed thousands in debt with amenities, and the trust deny liability.
If anything happens whilst on their land, contact a personal injury solicitor immediately, don't do as I did and believe their spiel that courts prefer you to go through them.
I'm now left in pain everyday, no job and debt up to my neck, thanks canal and river trusts for ruining my life 🤬

Love the walks,good crowd ,walk leader good with information on walk.I have done a few now so that says it all.

Rope around prop sorted by a diver under my policy. Don’t even think about going on the water without RCR. Superb service.

Terrible company. Quick to accuse because they are not great at spotting boat locations. Why should I have to put up with emails telling me I’m outstaying my welcome? I move frequently as i need water and want to see the whole network.

I received an e-mail today stating that if I didn't pay my boat license within 28 days, my boat would be removed from the water!?
This faux pas was the direct result of two CRT departments not contacting nor communicating with each other, or myself as discussed on more than two occasions.
I explained in a telephone conversation to them the following:-
1. It is not for boaters to be expected
to manage CRT's administration issues and failings, when it comes to license renewal, as I'm not an employee, I'm a client.
To send out a computer generated digital innacuracy, via AI, when a common sense phone call would had sufficed, isunrealistic
When incidents like this occur, there is no human responsibility and the trust mechanism to form business relationships, becomes unreliable.
Instead, CRT stated that they did not send the e-mail which was a complete lie. Then the technological blame game started wasting more of my time thier money. Syntax error, error 404 etc.
2. I have lived on a canal boat for 12 years and since CRT have taken over, the canal system is at it's worst I have seen it. Broken facilities seem to top the charts, followed by inoperable locks and finally a distinct lack of dredging.
3. Do not threaten paying members of the canal boating fraternity when CRT are not in full possession of the facts.
Only appointed individuals of His Majesties Courts can instruct e-mails/letters of this nature. By doing so they have operated outside of the law, which now leaves them liable, to prosecution.
4. CRT have absolutely no place on the canals or rivers whatsoever, with invented authority from a charity based organisation, whom have spiralled into a corporate based mafiosa.
5. They regularly have delusions of grandeur, regarding historical canal based knowledge and thier catastrophic interference in wildlife environments.
The distribution of infantile playground mentality styles of gossip, directed at the characters who continuously cruise and whom truly make the canal, what it was intended for.
6. The canal towpaths are now prioritised for e-bikes, cycle races, drunken loutish behaviour and all courtesy of CRT, born from Covid-19 times and never reversed.
7. And finally, we're not a six digit number, we are people who have made a conscious decision to live this way and CRT are destroying it with thier ignorance, bullying tactics and complete lack of vision.
Your selfish, rat-race and one-upmanship philosophy does not and never will intergrate, with a community of a relaxed way of life. There are two reasons why this is.
Regret and jealousy.
May God grant time to CRT, to relive all of these historical moments of unhelpfulness, in shame!