[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Is it true that BW demand risk assessments/insurance for the holes dug for > new mile markers (which are only there for a few minutes, as it were).
I don't know for sure but I suspect that it's probably the case. BW unfortunately tends to have a bit too much of a 'one size fits all' attitude to relationships with others working on BW waterways, whether they be contractors, volunteers or whatever. So if it's BW policy that such jobs need to be individually risk-assessed, then they will stick with that, whether the work is contractors building a new lock or a couple of guys from a canal society planting a milepost. (Another problem is that despite what is in theory a consistent national approach, we find regional distinctions in the way BW policy is actually implemented on different canals) A few years ago we successfully argued that it was unnecessary for volunteers to wear life jackets to install mooring rings in the towpath at Froghall, working several feet back from the edge of a channel barely 3ft deep, on the grounds that nobody had ever suggested that any of the dozens of towpath walkers needed to take any such precautions. I don't think we'd be as likely to be successful today. On the positive side, there does seem to be some sign that WRG's (and in particular our chairman Mike Palmer's) attempts to negotiate with BW for volunteers not to be automatically lumped together and treated the same as contractors might be beginning to have some success. But it's painfully slow. Or is this, like the famous Maesbury road bridge of around 1996, just a bit of canal mythology? > > Sorry, you've got me there. Please tell! Martin
