Just my opinion

By nature I am curious. So when Paul (of Waterways Routes) left a comment regarding the recent breach of the Bridgewater Canal I started thinking about ownership of the canal and how much land was actually owned.

The Bridgewater Canal is approximately 60km long. Effectively a linear water park. But how much property is owned; apart from the canal bed and what is it’s value?

Peel Holding purchased the canal and they appear to have a very diverse and convoluted grouping of sub companies. The Bridgewater Canal website states:

“The Bridgewater Canal is owned and operated by The Bridgewater Canal Company Limited, part of Peel L&P, in conjunction with the Bridgewater Canal Trust. Bridgewater Canal Company Limited is a statutory body responsible for navigation and maintenance of the Bridgewater Canal.”

Interestingly Peel L&P appears to have been decommissioned as of 1 April 2024. What happened to the Bridgewater Canal Company Limited; a statutory body required by law to maintain the canal?

A perusal of the records for the Bridgewater Canal Company at Companies House allowed me to look at their latest Director’s Report for the year ending 31 March 2024. The first thing that caught my eye was the paragraph titled “Going concern”

The director’s report the company has net current liabilities. However the directors report Peel L&P will continue to support the company to enable it to continue to operate for the next 12 months. You may have realised Peel L&P was decommissioned the following day (1 April 2024). The Director’s Report was for the period ending 31 March and was submitted on 29 November 2024 eight months after the decommissioning.

[Definition of Net Current Liabilities

Net current liabilities refer to the current assets less current liabilities of an organisation. To have net current liabilities, the current liabilities must be larger than the current assets. This is usually because the company has very little inventories or does not give credit and therefore has no receivables. Alternatively it could indicate that the business is insolvent.]

Under fixed assets the company had as at 31 March 2024.

Tangible Assets £21,458

Investment property £17,480,000

Loans to group undertakings £5,879,250

Total £23,380,708

After Deducted Liabilities the total is £18,603,376

Cash in the bank £20,158

There is insufficient detail in the report to identify whether the company is self-insured, insured by Peel Holdings or has independent insurance coverage. Nor is there and detail regarding the scope of the ‘Investment property’. Is it the canal; or more?

My conclusion is the Bridgewater Canal Company Ltd continues to exist and is has a statutory responsibly to maintain the canal.   However one gets the impression their is insufficient revenue to support the business.  Hence the comment about Pell L&P support.  But Pell L&P apparently not longer exists?

It becomes slightly more confusing because their is a Canal Trust on the Bridgewater Canal website

“The Bridgewater Canal Trust. The trust meets twice a year and formulates the long and short-term policies for the amenity use of the Bridgewater Canal. All income generated by the Bridgewater Canal from pleasure craft, fishing, drainage and sales of water for cooling purposes etc is used to maintain and improve the canal and its local environment.”

The above paragraph makes me wonder whether there are any additional sources of income?

There appears to be Peel L&P (decommissioned) which owns (ed) The Bridgewater Canal Company Limited which has assets of approximately £23m and a Bridgewater Canal Trust which generates revenue from boating, fishing, drainage and sale of water. I also read separately the income in 2018 was approx £750,000

Interestingly; unlike other UK canal trusts; there appear to be no records at Companies House for the Bridgewater Canal Trust.

My assumption is the Trust will dam both sides of the breach which would allow some boating, fishing and drainage,etc allowing revenue to continue. But not meet the statutory obligations for navigation and maintenance.

Repairs would likely cost in the region of £2-3m and my guess is the Trustees will take their time deciding how; if; when; they will fund that.

More Maintenance

It seems I’m spending more time these days doing maintenance tasks.

The new security camera stopped working with the system reporting the camera battery was flat.  That was a revelation as it’s connected to a 5V solar panel which was purchased to provide enough power to keep the camera battery fully charged.  

Had the camera or solar panel failed?   Both were still within the statutory 12 month warranty period.

I plugged each of them into my USB multimeter. 

The camera battery was accepting a charge and the solar panel was producing power.

There is a pigtail cable connector between the solar panel and the camera.  It’s an adapter connector as the solar panel cable has a micro usb plug on the end of the cable and the camera has a usb-c socket.  The pigtail connection wasn’t fully home, so no power was going from the panel to the camera.  “Look for the simple things first”

I don’t ride the ebike wearing my hearing aids.  The sound of the wind whistling in my ears is too painful.  Not wearing them means I don’t hear any unusual noises from the bike.  Today was an exception as I could definitely hear something.

I must have ridden a couple of thousand kilometres since the last oil change in the rear wheel internally geared hub.  It’s a 30 minute job.   But the noise remained!

Thinking about it I realised I hadn’t checked the grease in the main gear of the electric motor since the period prior to my first trip to Taiwan.  That was many thousands of kilometres ago.

After removing the crank, chain ring and cover plate I was surprised to see almost no grease.

This was less grease than when I first inspected it immediately after it was delivered.  At that time I had carefully and fully repacked the entire housing with a good quality grease.

The reverse side of the cover plate looked somewhat worn.  Fortunately the area where it sealed against the main housing wasn’t damaged.

I spent another 30 minutes repacking the entire area with grease. 

After reassembly the bike was still making a noise.   Eventually I traced the source to the chain tensioner.  It’s the first time I’ve disassembled the tensioner and I discovered the stainless steel bearing bush was worn out.   Of course you can’t just buy the bush which is probably worth less than $0.01.  The entire tensioner has to be purchased.  It would be nice to have a lathe and make my own replacements.

Jan was keen to tell me there was a breach in the Bridgewater Canal with boats being stranded.  The canal is owned by Peel Holdings, which has a sole family as the major shareholder.  Peel Holdings is very wealthy but the canal makes little money.   I suspect Peel Holding would like to divest themselves of the canal, but to date haven’t been able to find a naïve purchaser. 

My instincts are repairs are going to take a long time.  Peel Holdings won’t want to spend the money.  If the canal is insured, the insurance company will want to see evidence that Peel Holdings has been actively working to minimise potential risks.  There will likely be a stalemate and possibly a long legal battle prior to any repairs commencing.  I suspect the best stranded boaters can hope for is either being craned out. However my guess is Peel Holdings won’t do that unless there is plenty of negative publicity regarding their inaction.   Time will tell.