We are investing in our essential customer service facilities to make them more robust and quicker to repair.
New customer services facilities policy
In 2024-25 we consulted boaters and developed our new customer service facilities policy, which was published in July 2025. It includes the commitment to provide the essential facilities of water, refuse and Elsan no more than a day's cruising apart, and two days for pump-out.
Our Operational Property team is working with our suppliers to ensure essential facilities are prioritised for repair when things go wrong: we aim to attend essential services within 24 hours of notification, and to achieve a first-time fix in 80% of cases. This is not easy when the facilities vary so much and specific parts need to be ordered. So, we've announced an investment of £4.5 million over 5 years to upgrade and standardise water points, Elsan and pump-outs, increasing the speed and efficiency of future maintenance and repairs.
Simpler Recycling
During 2024 planning started to ensure that the Trust was prepared for the introduction of the Government’s Simpler Recycling legislation from 31 March 2025. The legislation was introduced to ensure that as much waste from businesses, households and other non-domestic properties (i.e. schools, hospitals) is recycled as possible.
All businesses with 10 or more full time employees had to be ready for the go live date in 2025, with households following in 2026 and all other organisations in 2027.
The legislation requires waste to be segregated into four types. There was some room for minor changes to these, depending on how the company who collects the waste operates, and for the Trust this meant introducing separate bins for glass, food and dry mixed recyclable to all customer and office sites in England, in addition to retaining the general waste collections.
With over 260 locations to review and the additional challenges of access restrictions, heritage buildings, weight limits and planning regulations, some sites were easier than others. Thankfully, many locations were big enough to accommodate the new bins, but at some sites new compounds had to be planned and constructed, others required moving a short distance and a small number provided even more challenges. In all cases, where work was required improvements were sought, such as adding locks or using CCTV to try and reduce instances of fly tipping.
Any new bins were being provided by our waste partners, and the scale of the national rollout did initially lead to some shortages in what was available. This mainly affected the food waste bins, and due to the delivery processes used the different types could not arrive at the same time.
Thank you to everyone for your patience during this period of transition. The last few sites are being finalised and there are still a couple of teething problems that need to be ironed out, but we are meeting regularly with our waste providers to sort these through as they arise.
If you do find an overflowing bin or a problem with rubbish at our waste sites, please let us know.
