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Boat owners' survey shows increase in satisfaction


Ray T

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26 May 2017

 

BOAT OWNERS’ SURVEY SHOWS INCREASE IN SATISFACTION 

The Canal & River Trust’s latest Boat Owners’ Views survey shows that boaters satisfaction with its waterways has increased in the past year together with the proportion of boaters who would recommend the charity’s waterways to others and the number who think that the upkeep of the waterways has continued to improve.

 In 2017’s survey 76% of the 1,160 respondents said they were happy with their cruising experience, up from 68% in 2016.  The improving trend was also reflected in the numbers of boaters who would recommend the Trust’s waterways to others, which leapt from 69% in 2016 to 78% in this year’s survey. 

 There was some regional variation with boaters most satisfied in Wales & Borders and least satisfied in London, perhaps reflecting the influx of boats putting pressure on the Capital’s waterways.  London was also the waterway where the fewest number of boaters would recommend the waterway to others – just 39%.

 In general boaters feel they know the charity better (2017: 57%; 2016: 48%) and feel more favourable to the Trust (2017: 59%; 2016: 54%), while there has been a slight increase in the number of boaters who trust the charity to look after the waterways, up from 63% to 65% this year.  Opinions about the overall upkeep of the waterways continue to improve, with 77% of boaters rating them OK to excellent (2016: 75%).

 Jon Horsfall, interim head of boating at Canal & River Trust, said: “The Boat Owners’ Views survey gets right to the heart of how boaters are feeling about us.  This year it’s great to see that boaters are happier with how things are, and that they would recommend our waterways to others. 

 “That’s not to say that there isn’t still work to do.  The Boat Owners’ Views survey helps us identify where things aren’t going quite so well – for example in London where the growth in boating has put pressure of moorings and facilities. The work underway to create a mooring strategy for London will help to address many of the concerns that boaters have there.

 “We’ve been listening to the feedback we’ve got from boaters and are involving licence holders in many of our planning decisions.  What boaters say really does make a difference and helps us immensely in the work we do – boaters often act as the eyes and ears of the waterways and help us respond quickly to problems so I’d urge anyone with suggestions to get in touch.

 “The survey findings help us focus on the issues that matter most to boaters, for example this year we’re planning on spending £26.9m on dredging and repairs to bridges and embankments.  Dredging is planned across the network, at sites including the Macclesfield, Chesterfield, Lancaster and Grand Union amongst others, with a fund set aside for spot dredging.  We’re also going to be spending £17.4m on other works including replacing 180 lock gates with a focus on the West Midlands, South East and Manchester & Pennine regions.  Your feedback has played an important part in determining this work.

 “We’ll be taking an in-depth look at the results to see what needs to be improved upon and what is working well so that we can continue to focus on improving the experience of boaters.” 

 The survey, which was sent to a third of the Trust’s boat licence holders, was carried out by the independent research consultancy BDRC Continental in March and April 2017.  It will be repeated each year with the aim of having contacted the majority of boaters on the Trust’s waters in each three-year cycle. 

 The Boat Owners’ Views survey report will be published on the Trust’s website in due course.

 Boaters can get in touch with the Trust by filling out a webform, calling 0303 040 4040, tweeting @CRTcontactus or getting involved in a local user forum.

 ENDS

 For further media requests please contact:

Fran Read, national press officer, Canal & River Trust

m 07796 610 427 e fran.read@canalrivertrust.org.uk 

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It won't be long before C&RTs figures show that 110% fo those questioned are totally satisfied with the way C&RT are managing the waterways., and 600% of those questioned think that C&RT are spending their income in the correct areas.

 

The 640,000,000 daily visitors are 'over the moon' with the improvements to the towpaths since boating has been reduced.

 

So, out of some 30,000 licence holders, some 10,000 (1/3 rd) have been contacted and the 'Charity' received 1100 (10%) responses

Of that (about 3% of all boaters), only 65% of that 3% Trust the Charity to look after the Waterways.

Hardly a resounding vote.

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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My understanding is they ask a different group of boaters each year . Surely if u want to compare last years results with this results you need to ask the SAME people in order to establish if satisfaction has increased or decreased otherwise it's meaningless.

Though I appreciate they need to ask different folk each year you cannot compare 2016 results with 2017 results as they're different people with different ideas of what constitutes " satisfied " . 

Strangely i didn't bother to do mine on when it came thru as i had an overwhelming belief that somehow the results would demonstrate an increase in satisfaction. 

Im not  CRT bashing but again i find myself simply unable to take any notice of the PR machine 

Yours cynically 

Chubby 

ETA : I left out the word " not " in my last sentence and edited this post to add it 

Edited by chubby
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1 hour ago, chubby said:

My understanding is they ask a different group of boaters each year . Surely if u want to compare last years results with this results you need to ask the SAME people in order to establish if satisfaction has increased or decreased otherwise it's meaningless.

Though I appreciate they need to ask different folk each year you cannot compare 2016 results with 2017 results as they're different people with different ideas of what constitutes " satisfied " . 

Strangely i didn't bother to do mine on when it came thru as i had an overwhelming belief that somehow the results would demonstrate an increase in satisfaction. 

Im not  CRT bashing but again i find myself simply unable to take any notice of the PR machine 

Yours cynically 

Chubby 

ETA : I left out the word " not " in my last sentence and edited this post to add it 

If you take a large enough random sample then it will represent the entire population and will give a meaningful set of responses that can be compared year to year, though because it is a sample there will be a level of uncertainty which they should report, that way if there is a small change in - for example - satisfaction it would allow a judgement as to whether it was probably due to sampling variation or a real trend.  I used to be involved in vehicle customer satisfaction surveys, and I was surprised to find that once you had a couple of hundred random responses for a specific population, more responses made little change to the result.

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2 hours ago, chubby said:

Strangely i didn't bother to do mine on when it came thru as i had an overwhelming belief that somehow the results would demonstrate an increase in satisfaction. 

Im not  CRT bashing but again i find myself simply unable to take any notice of the PR machine 

Yours cynically 

Chubby

^^^^^
This!

Having completed them in the past, I have found them to be very poor surveys, often making it impossible to give much focus on the bits that CRT consistently get wrong.

I stopped doing them, and got one this round that I did not complete.

If others are of a like mind to me, this of course skews the overall result to be more favourable than it might have been, so I'm probably playing stright into their hands because I no longer do them. (!)

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I thought that the last survey was much better than previous ones I've had, there were less occasions where I didn't understand the question or I felt that later questions showed I'd misunderstood earlier ones or there were no answers that fitted the question. Are the questions published anywhere? 

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Seeing as the Trust is presently fighting two major court cases both based on their possibly criminal enforcement behaviour,  and spent the last four ? years fighting a boater in court to falsely claim they were not aware of the faults that sank his boat, they are falsely claiming that the licence is a civil contact, refusing to issue statutory licences unless the applicant agrees to sign away their statutory rights, falsely claiming that the 1962 Transport act applies to licences 12 ? years before licences were invented, deliberately misquoting that act so that it changes the meaning,  attempting to implement illegal fines, charging for towpath moorings and winter moorings in breach of the law, advertising trading licences as mandatory when there is fact no legal requirement for any such thing, charging extra for it which is fraud by misrepresentation, their enforcement officers have been caught lying about the legislation, and making false statements to the court about holding boats as a lein over licence fee debts, they corrupted the ombudsman scheme by appointing him themselves without any due process,  using contractors to remove section 8 boats as far away from the owners as possible to try to bankrupt the owner with costs ect ect...

 

Other wise they are doing well.

  • Greenie 1
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19 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to why they say they will publish the report that backs up these claims 'in due course'?

 

Because that is their intention.

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"In 2017’s survey 76% of the 1,160 respondents said they were happy with their cruising experience, up from 68% in 2016.  The improving trend was also reflected in the numbers of boaters who would recommend the Trust’s waterways to others, which leapt from 69% in 2016 to 78% in this year’s survey."

The significant figure missing from that sentence is the number of respondents in 2016, and it's absence renders the comparison between the two successive years completely meaningless ! Without the actual number of respondents for 2016, it is impossible to obtain a numerical value for the quoted 68% for that year. I suspect that they have omitted to give a figure for the number of respondents to the 2016 survey for a very good reason - could it be that significantly more people responded last year ?

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Silly as it is if they dont ask anybody they wont get any answers will they? Anyway we have been out this weekend, all locks worked, some manned by volunteers never seen it as busy, so in the North no complaints, other than its raining this morning.

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3 minutes ago, peterboat said:

no complaints, other than its raining this morning.

That's definitely CaRT's fault. It's rained much more since they took over from BW. 

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56 minutes ago, WotEver said:

That's definitely CaRT's fault. It's rained much more since they took over from BW. 

No its the other way around no rain is causing water level problems, so they need to employ more rain dancers I suspect:rolleyes:

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17 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Members?? CRT have members now?!

Just after I posted that I though "I should have typed 'boaters' but no-one will care."

Guess I was wrong ;)

  • Greenie 1
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