The first meeting of the Local Mooring Strategy steering group for the western Kennet and Avon took place on 26 August in County Hall, Trowbridge. As you will see from the documents below which BW circulated before the meeting, most of the changes that BW want to make, that will have a big impact on our lives, will not be up for discussion in the local mooring strategy.
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Posts Tagged ‘British Waterways’
BW say policy changes won’t be up for discussion in Local Mooring Strategy
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010Mark Stephens’ emails
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010Following our incomplete story, BW and the K and A Trust: After the apology, the answers! (July 2010 posts), we have received the emails between Mark Stephens, K&A Manager, and the Trust, requested using Freedom of Information. These emails include the draft minutes of the User Group meeting on 29 April. They also show Mark talking about the boaters’ towpath tidy, saying how pleased he is that people are volunteering without being asked, but also saying that some control is needed. Mark, if you’re reading this, one of the people organising the clean-up tried many times to talk to you on the phone to ask permission to do this, with no joy. So we went ahead and tidied the towpath anyway.
The emails also show that the main focus of the Trust’s partnership with BW is the use of volunteers to carry out maintenance of the canal. A good reason to get involved methinks. It doesn’t look like the Trust will be involved with enforcement, but we still don’t know what the partnership agreement actually says. At the last request for it, we were told it hadn’t yet been drawn up.
The emails are here. Mark Stephens emails 1 Mark Stephens emails 2 Mark Stephens emails 3 Mark Stephens emails 4 Mark Stephens emails 5 Mark Stephens emails 6
Payments from Local Councils to BW amount to £550,000
Thursday, July 15th, 2010At one of the meetings between boaters, BW and Wiltshire Council Ken Oliver, Wiltshire Council’s Canal Officer, made a comment about the amount of money that Councils pay each year to BW. Wanting to know the amounts and what this money was for I made FOI requests to BW, Wiltshire Council, B&NES and West Berkshire Council, asking for amounts that they had paid to or received from BW in the last five years.
As usual, the figures received from the Councils and from BW don’t match, but judging from the recent totally inaccurate FOI replies from BW I feel it is more likely the Council ones are accurate. The amounts in total come to a massive £552,955 paid to BW over a five-year period.
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Boaters attend Wiltshire Area Board meetings
Thursday, July 15th, 2010Boaters have attended the Wiltshire Council Area Board Meetings at Trowbridge and Pewsey recently. Here’s a report from the Trowbridge Area Board on 1st July.
Wiltshire Council’s canal officer Ken Oliver gave a brief update on the outcome of the recent meeting between BW, boaters and Wiltshire Council in Devizes on 1 June. He only spoke for about 5 minutes as Councillor Osborn had somewhat hijacked the meeting due to being unhappy about a £500,000 hole in library budgets.
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BW pledge to eliminate overstaying in two years
Thursday, July 15th, 2010An article in the August 2010 Waterways World quotes one of the BW Directors, Simon Salem, who said that in the past two years BW has more or less eliminated licence evasion and the task for BW enforcement now is to eliminate overstaying “within two years”.
Unfortunately Simon’s statement is contradicted by Sally “Foot in Mouth” Ash, who works in his department at BW HQ.
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BW and the K and A Trust: After the apology, the answers!
Thursday, July 8th, 2010I have now had a response from BW to my request for an internal review of its refusal to send me minutes of meetings with the K&A Trust. Here it is:
Further to Caroline Killeavy’s correspondence with you I am responding to your request for all documents regarding: …“Please could you send me the minutes or notes of all meetings between British Waterways and the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust which took place between 1 January 2009 and 23 March 2010. Please could you send me copies of all email correspondence and notes of telephone calls and conversations to British Waterways from the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust between 1 January 2009 and 23 March 2010. Please could you send me copies of all email correspondence and notes of telephone calls and conversations to the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust from British Waterways between 1 January 2009 and 23 March 2010. Please could you send me a list of the dates, times, locations and attendees of meetings between British Waterways and the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust between 1 January 2009 and 23 March 2010.”
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“The politest climb down I’ve ever seen” – BW promises to release minutes of meetings with K&A Trust
Friday, June 18th, 2010A boater recently appealed against BW’s refusal to provide information and minutes of meetings which had taken place with the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust (see previous article on this web site “I don’t believe it” http://kanda.boatingcommunity.org.uk/wordpress/?p=831 ). This is the apology she received from Caroline Killeavy, BW’s Head of Customer Relations:
“Thank you for your email of 7th June requesting a formal review of the information we previously supplied to you. Your second email has been very helpful to us in that it now specifically identifies the meetings which you are interested in.
Chris Grey and I have reviewed the initial response we sent to you and we both agree that in the light of your most recent detailed request the original information supplied to you was insufficient. Please accept my apologies for this. I can reassure you that this was not intentional.
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Wiltshire Fire Service offer to help the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust
Thursday, June 10th, 2010By now you may have met Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service cycling along the towpath giving out fire safety advice and free smoke detectors. They may look a bit like BW staff as they will be wearing the Fire Service uniform of blue shirt, black trousers and also a life jacket, so make sure you don’t mistake them for the boat checkers or enforcement officers, because a smoke detector could save your life, whereas a patrol notice is only useful for starting fires.
On second thoughts, keep the patrol notices and threatening letters, as you may wish to refer to them when making a complaint to BW about unlawful enforcement.
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“I Never Give In To Bullies” – A Letter To BW
Sunday, June 6th, 2010Two years ago, BW proposed in a previous consultation to increase the licence fee for boats without a home mooring by £150. This plan provoked enormous opposition from boaters. One of the responses to that 2008 consultation summed up how many of us feel. We decided it was time to share this inspiring and angry letter with other boaters. Here is an edited version.
18/10/2008
Dear Mr Salem
I have read British Waterways’ response to the BWAF report on boat licence fees and this is my response to that. I live on a boat and have done so for 18 years, I am an individual and speak for myself and do not subvert that right to user groups, whoever they might be.
The points I take exception to, which I believe are the main purpose of the exercise, are those relating to the so-called ‘continuous cruiser’ which is the absurd name and concept applied to people who live on boats who neither need nor want a permanent mooring.
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