A meeting between K&A liveaboard boaters and CRT’s Regional Director Richard Thomas has been cancelled because Mr Thomas “no longer works for the Trust”, it emerged today, 8th July 2019. The meeting was due to take place tomorrow. Richard Thomas joined CRT as Regional Director for Wales and South West just 12 months ago in July 2018. He had been a naval officer and had held a number of senior roles in the forces. It is not known why he has left, however previous senior staff members Ian Rogers and Mike Grimes also left CRT after relatively short periods. All three joined CRT after long careers in other organisations. At the time of Mike Grimes’s departure in early 2017 there had been rumours of disagreements between senior CRT staff.
Richard Thomas appeared to have some ambitious plans for change on the western K&A, formed with input from CRT’s local User Group forums and a study day on 29th April 2019 which no liveaboard boaters were invited to. Not all of Richard Thomas’s plans would have benefited the liveaboard community. We will publish more information once it becomes clear whether Mr Thomas’s proposed changes played a part in his sudden departure.
See also
http://kanda.boatingcommunity.org.uk/ka-manager-made-redundant-in-crt-restructuring/
http://kanda.boatingcommunity.org.uk/crt-head-of-boating-quits-after-only-22-months/
Tags: Ian Rogers, liveaboards, Mike Grimes, Regional DIrector, Richard Thomas
We understand that Richard Thomas left CRT for reasons other than financial impropriety. We will cover this more fully in a new article.
I hear from the Sharpness canal he had his hand in the till to the tune of £80000 and was sacked for gross misconduct. crt not going to prosecute
The Trust can categorically confirm that this claim is wholly unfounded. There have been no allegations of financial impropriety, or indeed any other misconduct, against Richard Thomas. In the circumstances, this post should be removed immediately.
We have no evidence this really came from anyone at CRT as it is unsigned and therefore anonymous but we have published it for completeness.