Here’s the precis of Panda’s presentation to the Area Board for Bradford-on-Avon on Thursday 21st January 2010. It will form the basis for a press release to present the positive role of the boat dwellers amongst the local community, show how the threat to the boater’s lifestyle is a cause for concern throughout the community and ask the council to exercise their duty of care towards boaters as travellers.
Feeling bloated with consultations? As indigestible as the worst of excessive Christmas food, here’s another one.
DEFRA which among many other things is the government department with responsibility for inland navigable waterways, has launched the public consultation stage of its ongoing review of strategic policy.
some explanation is here;
http://liveaboard-forum.blogspot.com/2010/01/major-consultation-on-national.html
The consultation is here;
http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/waterways/index.htm
It might be an opportunity among other things to get the situation of residential boaters on the radar with any incoming government, which will be in place by the time the consultation reports.
Some responses to the local moorings strategy consultation, if you are struggling with words for your own response please feel free to lift or copy any amount of the text if it agrees with your own views.
Response 1
A very comprehensive thorough and well reasoned response encompassing most of the points discussed on this site and at the meetings.
Response 2
One person’s response to help anyone who’s still trying to understand the extremely complicated proposals and wondering what to say.
Response 3 National Consultation
And a response to the national consultation.
As you may know, the Traveller Liaison Officer of Wiltshire council attended our meeting in the Canal Tavern on the BW consultations recently.
We have now been invited by Councillor Malcolm Hewson, the Councillor for Bradford South and Chair of the council’s Area Board, to attend the Area Board meeting on 21st January so that we can obtain the support of local parish and other representatives in this part of Wiltshire. He has also asked us to put our concerns in public to BW, as Damian Kemp of BW will also be there.
The meeting is at Holt Parish hall at 7pm on 21st January. The address is 335 The Street, Holt BA14 6QH.
Cllr Hewson has suggested that as many boaters as possible try to attend this meeting, in order to put the maximum pressure on BW. There would be room for quite a lot of us – up to about 30 or 40.
Please can you let us know if you can attend.
If you failed to get your local consultation response in by this Monday 11th, you will be glad to hear that following a number of complaints BW have extended the deadline to the 31st January, the same deadline as the national consultation.
So no more excuses, get that response emailed or posted as soon as you can.