‘We’ve had to cancel all our river tours’
The owner of a Bath river tour company says his business has been devastated after a broken sluice gate caused the water level to drop on a section of the River Avon to empty.
Paul Siddall, 54, runs Bath Adventures which operates boat trips and walking tours of Bath.
The company has been forced to cancel all trips on the river, costing him thousands of pounds.
This has compounded a difficult few months for the business which has suffered as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
A sluice gate broke on Tuesday, September 15 at Twerton causing the canal to drain of water, grounding several houseboats and affecting 47 vessels.
Mr Siddall said: “I was actually just finishing a river tour when I noticed the river level was dropping far below normal.
“I quickly managed to get the boat from its moorings up to the floating pontoon at Widcombe Lock. Just in time as the water was gone.
“We have had to cancel all our tours since.”
Mr Siddall, who is the skipper of Lady Pamela, said: “I understand that it affected the houseboats terribly and really feel for them.
“Yet we have a very small window of time when we can operate. This is the peak time really with the good weather.”
The company had been unable to operate since the start of the pandemic as the restrictions prevented both walking and boat tours.
Mr Siddall said: “We really need every day to survive through the winter months - coronavirus did hit us really badly.
“But since we were allowed to operate since August 1 we have been fully ‘Covid’ booked every single day. We are having fewer people and making sure we comply with regulations.”
The skipper also said how lucky it was that he was at the end of a tour when the water dropped on Tuesday.
He said: “If we had been fully out and it had gone down with people in it, it could have been a very serious incident.
“I know the Environment Agency said it learned from last time this happened last year but we have not had much communication.
“We are also left unsure if we will get compensation from not being able to operate for however many days it is.”
Bath Adventures has eight full time and part-time staff members, including Mr Siddall, who depend on the company.
He added: “We have a really tight-knit brilliant team of people working for us and this affects them all.”
The river tour company did benefit from a discretionary grant authorised by Bath and North East Somerset Council.
Grants were given to companies which were struggling with the coronavirus lockdown.
But Mr Siddall said: “The couple of thousand we got from the grant has been completely blown out of the water.
“The only positive thing is the number of staycations people are doing. Whereas last year I’d say 50 per cent of our customers are North American, this year they have all been from the UK.
“Most say they have never been to Bath before but say they will come back.”
Anna Cooper, inset, who works for the company as business manager, said: “It is just so frustrating as this has happened two years in a row at peak times for us when we are seeing unprecedented demand for bookings.
“They have been coming in thick and fast and with the new regulations and rule of six we need every booking.
“We are trying to see it through the last summer months and we are a really small team so we are really affected by something like this.”
A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said: “We have put a process in place for collecting compensation claims from those members of the community affected by this event.
“We are asking people to contact us if they believe they have a legitimate and reasonable claim for compensation.”