A personal appeal to Canal and River Trust Trustee John Dodwell.

Dear John,


I have said elsewhere that I was disappointed that you decided to use your position of influence to support your Estates Department and Waterways Manager Wendy Capelle in their decision that it was right for the Canal and River Trust to deprive a young, hard-working man and his three children of their livelihood.
Even though very suspicious, many of us had hoped that CaRT would have a different approach, on a more human scale, to issues like this, yet we have seen canal traders and now canalside traders being pushed out of business and we don't really understand the motive. What's more we all worry about who you will target next.
What inspires a major charity to conduct a campaign to smear a young man, desperately trying to do his best for his three children and working hard?
OK, so he planted some vegetables without agreement, put up a lean-to and tried to expand his business. I dare say he wasn't very good at meetings and he was naïve enough to take the verbal assurances of CaRT officers without getting things in writing.
Despite the fact that you choose to portray him – without any proof that I can see – as 'aggressive' and difficult, Danny has massive support from boaters and local people, who see him as nothing but charming and hard-working. That is demonstrated by his popularity and the growth of his business, something we all ought to applaud.
And the mistakes here are hardly one-sided are they? A senior CaRT's manager gave Danny verbal assurances that she later refused to confirm, and went so far as to refuse to attend a meeting where she might have been questioned about them.
Your staff, whilst making much now of 'heritage value' have over the past year or more variously suggested knocking down the brick hut at the centre of the disagreement and putting a Portakabin up alongside it.
In fact, everyone thought we had agreement in December, but CaRT seems to have been pulled out because Danny George honestly explained he didn't currently have the cash to fund the building needed.
You could have helped him then, but you didn't. Instead he simply had the rug pulled from under him and a campaign mounted to blacken his reputation with those who protested on his behalf.
You make the excuse that everyone has to abide by the rules but the difficulty with that is that you change the rules according to circumstances. I know a marina on CaRT waterspace where the lessee was told five years ago to deal with coping stones that were falling in the water and a hazard to moorers. Today they are exactly the same. So much for equal treatment. I know hire firms who ignore mooring rules and obstruct the canal with nothing done – and these are firms that have the staff and knowledge to deal with CaRT.
Danny is a one-man band trying to keep his family afloat and CaRT's attitude to him is a touchstone of where the charity is heading.
I would ask you to stop this witch-hunt in its tracks. Rather than protect your senior estates manager, grab him by the ear and take him down to Audlem to discuss this with Danny and his many supporters - and sit down with him until you find a solution. That should be so much easier now that hundreds of pounds are pouring into the online fund to assist him to purchase the building needed.
CaRT would get kudos and support for acknowledging that part of the function of a charity like ours is to help small businesses that enhance and boost the waterways – and George's Pork and Poultry does that – everybody would be able to say CaRT are reasonable people after all, at least they stopped before they destroyed the income of this young family.
It would be even better for the reputation of the Canal and River Trust if you could assist Danny, perhaps, with some key issue like electricity supply?
The alternative is that CaRT's reputation gets dragged down again. Just imagine what would happen if you persist in this eviction. Danny, desperate to save his family, refuses to move. You bring in the bailiffs. The boaters and locals blockade the canal to turn them away – for make no mistake we are on his side, not that of your officials.
CaRT would be facing scenes similar to the protests against BW in the heyday of the young IWA. What an irony that the body those campaigners were trying to get set up is finally in place and finding itself the focus of boaters protesting against its lack of vision and inhumanity.
Everyone tells me you are one of the good guys, and I believe you are at least amenable to commonsense. CaRT's persecution of Danny George, for that is how it is widely regarded, needs to be wiped from the public perspective. You need to demonstrate some charity, understanding and compassion and lead your officials to a solution that does not involve this young family being made destitute at the behest of the Trust.
I would beg you to live up to that reputation as one of the good guys and use your influence to end the nastiness currently coming out of CaRT's PR department, halt the eviction and work to a solution that reflects some credit on the charity of which you are a trustee, rather than plunge it further into disrepute.



Peter Underwood