With the Brentford Canal Festival in full swing, GoodGym arrived to help the organisers make the day a success. Maria and Sevan had been bunting the streets yesterday and were joined by Manuela who lives nearby. After a safety briefing, all 3 were asked to head towards Brentford Lock.

Maria had very enthusiastically chosen to litterpick along the River Brent to keep the walkways clean and she had a stash of bright orange bags to keep her busy. She cheerily added more steps to her day and found a lost wallet which was handed to the organisers for safe keeping.

Manuela and Sevan were trusted with being traffic controllers. Not for cars, for people. The bridge over Brentford Lock became a bottleneck each year. The stairs up and down were narrow and lots more people than normal were trying to cross it during the festival. Manuela and Sevan picked up some Stop-Go signs from the Canal and River Trust stall and gained a volunteer too as Pat from C&RT joined them.

The controller trio tried one approach. It worked but it was over-complicated, so caused big trouble. It actually made things worse than if they weren't there at all as bridge crossers were slowed down a lot and fewer were crossing, plus everyone was dependent on Sevan. They agreed to simplify and have 2 people controlling traffic, one on each set of stairs. Manuela and Sevan managed the flow of people going up and down their own set of stairs, which worked a lot better and they kept working this way until the end of the session.

"This is much better than last year. That was absolute chaos!" - Bridge Crosser

Big trouble averted.