EA Customer Charter and Lock Keeping Service Targets

[boatone]

The EA have now published the Customer Charter and Lock Keeping Service Targets for 2015-16:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/river-thames-customer-charter

 

[Chris_d]

From that there appears to be a reduction in service or are they just being more realistic?

 

[boatone]

From that there appears to be a reduction in service or are they just being more realistic?

We challenged that and it would appear that they have been instructed to not promise anything they don't think they can deliver - in other words they have moved from apirational to realistic as they see it. Unfortunately many volunteers don't want to work at weekends, which is when there is actually the greatest need, and cannot be left to work locks unsupervised. Hopefully service will actually be better than indicated, particularly at the recognised priority locks i.e. choke/difficult/revenuepoints etc.

Wearing my TMBA hat we would like to be kept aware of experience of locks being unattended during indicated duty hours and there is a specific "incident type" for "lock unmanned during charter hours" in our Information Report Form here:
http://www.tmba.org.uk/infoform/

 

[mikemanor]

Sadly, it's not the EA Customer Charter - it's the EA River Thames Customer Charter. Oh to have a customer charter. Oh to have the EA take any interest at all in the navigation they are responsible for. What is a lock keeper?

Oh for the long neglected Anglian Region to have a navigation authority that is fit for purpose.

Dreaming I know !!!

 

[Colin Regs]

cannot be left to work locks unsupervised

Is there a sound reason for this?

 

[shades]

Volunteers

Is there a sound reason for this?

The volunteers are left to work unsupervised, but only for short periods (up to one hour) to cover lunch or other short absences. This is to protect the volunteers, their training is a reduced version of the standard lock staff training.