Padlocks are taken from the towpath railings

NARROWBOAT-dwellers say the trust running the canal through Islington and Camden is wasting their cash after it sent a team to remove locks left by lovers on towpath railings.

Three staff members from the Canal and River Trust (CRT), the charity that manages the UK’s canals, were pictured cutting off “love locks” – padlocks left by couples to symbolise their lasting love – with angle grinders on the waterway route over the weekend.

The Trust said the locks had to be removed to allow for the railings to be painted.

The National Bargee Traveller Association (NBTA), an organisation representing travelling boat dwellers, posted the photo on Twitter/X, said: “While CRT demands we pay more, they’re allowing facilities and locks [to] fall apart and continuing to waste money.”

The photo was captioned: “Here CRT unnecessarily cut pad­locks off at Camden Lock.”

In April the CRT introduced a licence surcharge for itinerant boaters, those without a home mooring.

These boaters will see the cost of their licences rise by 5 per cent each year for the next five years, so by 2028 they will be paying the standard licence fee – which itself increases with inflation – plus 25 per cent.

Discussing the incident in Camden, NBTA press officer Jack Saville said: “We feel that this is emblematic of CRT talking out of both sides of their mouth.

“All their communi­cations to the public are about how hard-pressed they are for money, how they are struggling to keep facilities open, and how they need boaters to pay more.

“And yet they consistently demonstrate that they can spend money on frivolous things, like cutting off padlocks. It just seems absurd.”

The CRT has said it needs to increase costs in order to pay for essential maintenance on the UK’s ageing canal system in the context of declining government funding over the coming years.

Last winter, for example, the trust carried out restoration work on the historic bridge over Camden Town’s “Dead Dog Basin” – the UK’s busiest footbridge, visited by over a million people per year – costing half a million pounds.

According to the NBTA, the surcharge is an “existential threat” to the houseboat community, not just because many will struggle to afford it but because it creates a precedent for ongoing price hikes that will discourage people from living on the canals and could eventually end the itinerant way of life altogether.

Some boaters, independently of the NBTA, are organising a licence strike to contest the surcharge, and already have over 300 boaters signed up to take part.

Mr Saville said: “The NBTA is supporting boaters to resist however they see fit and it’s vitally important that they do.

“This is a route by which the CRT could well end this way of life, which a lot of us think is very important – not just for people living on the canals, but for canal safety.

“The CRT rarely wants to talk to any boaters, but hopefully through continued pressure we will start to see some movement.”

A Canal & River Trust spokesperson said they had removed the locks from “one of the busiest locations on Britain’s canal network”, adding: “Keeping it alive for boaters, towpath visitors and wildlife, alongside the rest of our 2,000 miles of historic canals across London and beyond, requires the trust and our volunteers to carry out constant maintenance and repairs.

“In this instance, the padlocks have been removed so that the railings can be painted.”