Moorings Consultation « Kennet and Avon Boating Community Website

Moorings Consultation

Well the mooring consultation periods are finished.
Deep breath folks….. It’s not over yet by a long way.
If, as is believed, the local strategy is a done deal British Waterways are now moving into forming the steering groups.

Save Our Waterways – from liveaboard scum!!

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Documents obtained via Freedom of Information show that BW has recruited Will Chapman, the driving force behind Save Our Waterways, to set up local mooring strategies led by “well-informed boaters who are also parish councillors” as Sally Ash reported in December at the Kennet and Avon local mooring strategy meeting. We understand that Mr Chapman is a Parish Councillor in Alrewas.

In doing this BW has presented local mooring strategies as a key part of BW’s move to charity status, which assumes there will be considerable input from local (settled) communities into the governance of the charity on a local level. Sally Ash gave a presentation to Lichfield District Parish Forum on 24 January which blurred the boundaries between “local mooring strategy steering groups” and the overall local governance of the new charity. This will undoubtedly cause problems. On the Kennet and Avon, where a trial local structure is being piloted, there is a clear distinction between the Local Mooring Strategy Steering Group, which has a time-limited job to do, and the Kennet and Avon Canal Partnership Board, which is an ongoing local management board.

British Waterways press release for the Lee boat clearance

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

Yes, mention of Sally Ash and the 1995 Act on the same piece of paper. We hear Ms Eichmann is currently undergoing flailing to ensure her place in the bunker after all the lies she has told.

BRITISH WATERWAYS ANNOUNCE RIVER LEE NAVIGATION MOORINGS MANAGEMENT PLAN

British Waterways is today (18 February 2011) calling upon local authorities, residents, boaters and all who use the River Lee and River Stort Navigations and the Hertford Union Canal to comment on its proposals to introduce a new moorings management plan for the area.

Read more…

Tags: continuous cruiser, Damian Kemp, Lee Navigation, liveaboards, mooring policy, Moorings Consultation, Sally Ash
Posted in Moorings Consultation | 1 Comment »

Lee Consultation – breaking news

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

The consultation is published here;

British Waterways Consultations

With a closing date 7 weeks away from the date of publishing, yet another illegal act by BW.

WIth this choice gem of disinformation;

To qualify for a boat licence (as laid out in the 1995 British Waterways Act) a boat must have a ‘home mooring’ – somewhere where it may lawfully be kept when not being used for cruising. An exception is made for boats which hold a ‘continuous cruiser’ licence, which requires them to genuinely move around the waterway network without mooring in any one place for more than 14 days. Some boats on our canals and rivers, and in this particular area, hold a continuous cruiser licence but are moving only limited distances, if at all, and mooring in just a few locations.

Prizes are available for the person who finds the most lies in the above paragraph.

And who has made the FOI request for the evidence for this statement?

The plan has been drafted in response to… …the concern raised by other waterway users

Tags: continuous cruising, Damian Kemp, Lee Navigation, liveaboards, mooring policy, Sally Ash
Posted in Moorings Consultation | 3 Comments »

Tales from the Riverbank 2

Friday, February 18th, 2011

The River Lea to be precise.

British Waterways have made proposals for the Lee Navigation that break a number of laws.

The River Lea in Bow

You can download them here; British Waterways Mooring Management Plan.

Mooring Strategy meeting runs smoother without its Chair

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

The fifth meeting of the Local Mooring Strategy steering group took place on 28 January. It ran much more smoothly and constructively than the others due to the absence of the BW Chair, Sally Ash. The bullying atmosphere experienced by boaters’ representatives was conspicuous by its absence as BW’s Damian Kemp ran the meeting with a minimum of fuss. Despite being the Project Officer for the Local Mooring Strategy, Mr Kemp has shown willingness to take boaters’ views and rights on board. Unfortunatley he has little power within BW.

Local Mooring Strategy: Hire boat companies and liveaboards agree on way forward while BW tries underhand tactics

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

The fourth meeting of the Local Mooring Strategy steering group took place on 10 December. It was notable for the comments of the APCO rep that “existing legislation, consistently applied, would solve the problem… if we get ‘place’ right, we’ve done our job”. APCO, the Association of Pleasure Craft Operators, is the hire boat companies’ trade body. Many hire boat firms rely on liveaboard boaters for much of their skilled and unskilled workforce, and would encounter problems if their staff had too far to travel to work.

Get organised – BW to go ahead with local mooring strategies in other areas.

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

BW appears to be going ahead with local mooring strategies in other areas which it defines as ‘hotspots’ before the pilot local mooring strategy on the Kennet and Avon Canal has even been drawn up and implemented. As far as we know, these areas are the Lee and Stort, Birmingham, the Macclesfield Canal and the Southern Grand Union.

As we have discovered from the consultations and the subsequent local mooring strategy steering group meetings on the Kennet and Avon, local mooring strategies are likely to be targeted at boats without moorings and especially at liveaboard boaters without moorings.

2-hna1527 Photo: Bob Naylor KAcanalTIMES.co.uk

Chair of Local Mooring Strategy Steering Group ignores consensus

Monday, November 29th, 2010

The local mooring strategy steering group met again on 8 November. We are able to provide notes of most of the discussion, taken by a volunteer, which are at the end of this article.

The most significant point that emerged at this meeting was the fact that there is a strong consensus among the different interest groups – liveaboard and other boaters, the hire boat industry, local authorities and parish councillors – around the table on the following points:

Photo: Bob Naylor KAcanalTIMES.co.uk 7-hna-1534

Profit and prejudice

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

Our busy freedom of information bees have turned up yet more evidence that the local mooring strategy is inspired by a vicious combination of prejudice against liveaboard boaters and BW’s desire to extract the maximum profit wherever it can.

Boaters’ meeting and local mooring strategy update

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

About 35 boaters attended the meeting on September 21 and helped to reduce the Georgian Lodge’s surplus of Guinness. At the meeting, boaters agreed a statement of what they wanted from the Local Mooring Strategy:

Kennet and Avon Boating Community Website