The K&A Floating Fayre is back! On Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th May 2024, the visitor moorings by the George Inn, Bathampton will be full of boats selling unique art, crafts, jewellery, traditional canal art and craftwork and other handmade wares; bike repairs, gifts of all kinds, clothes, food, drink and much more. Support our roving canal traders!
Tomorrow, Thursday 11th April 2024, between 10am and 3pm, CRT volunteers’ work boats will be collecting rubbish between Bath and Bradford on Avon. If you have any bulky items such as mattresses, barrels of oil, waste from boat fit-outs etc, just give them a shout as they pass. They will also be doing some litter picking on the towpath as they go, and boaters are welcome to do their own litter picking and dispose of it as the work boat passes.
Please sign the petition to keep The Bike Boat trading on the Kennet & Avon Canal – see https://www.change.org/p/get-the-canal-river-trust-to-let-the-bike-boat-to-continue-trading-on-the-kennet-avon
Liveaboard boaters in Wiltshire who missed out on the Government’s Energy Bills Support Scheme are being offered £400 by Wiltshire Council. If you did not get any winter fuel and food payments from Julian House, you can apply. The funding covers boaters on residential, leisure and other non-residential moorings. Anyone in Wiltshire who has previously missed out on funding needs to upload a PDF of their CRT licence, and the first 500 households will receive £400. Neither CRT nor any mooring companies or marinas etc will be involved in the application process. The deadline to apply is 31st March 2024. You can apply by phone, contact 0300 003 4576.
We have been alerted to the fact that CRT may be considering restricted opening hours all year round on a permanent basis for the Caen Hill flight in Devizes, should no objections be raised. The winter opening hours for Caen Hill (Locks 29-44) are 10am – 1pm every day, with last entry into the flight by 1pm.
CRT’s policy statement and report on its 2022 consultation on a minimum standard for boaters’ facilities, published on 30th May and 5th July 2023, states that CRT will increase its minimum cruising distance between facilities from 4 hours to 1 day, even though 25% to 35% of respondents (depending on the specific facility) thought a gap of 5 hours was too great. Since then we have had multiple reports of CRT closing facilities all around the waterways.
WE HAVE CHANGED THE PLAN FOR SATURDAY 27TH JANUARY, AS CRT HAS CANCELLED THE OPEN DAY…….
WE WILL MEET AT DUN MILL LOCK AT 10.30AM AND WALK UP THE TOWPATH TO HUNGERFORD TOWN CENTRE. WE WILL LEAFLET THE PUBLIC ON THE PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE OVER THE CANAL AND UNDER THE BRIDGE.
THEN WE WILL GO TO THE PUB AND DISCUSS MORE ACTIONS AGAINST CRT’S UNJUST SURCHARGE!!
Protest and engagement against the surcharge, 27th January, meet at Dun Mill Lock at 10.30am. Join us to protest against the surcharge on boats without a home mooring and engage with the public to get their support!
Around 12 liveaboard boaters attended the meeting of Wilcot Parish Council on 9th January 2024. There was discussion of a letter from a boater to Wiltshire Councillor Paul Oatway objecting that the rubble and earth banks in the lane by the canal were constructed without planning consent and were an unauthorised waste disposition. Two boaters spoke in the public question time.