Earlier this year, BaNES Council consulted on a number of parking restrictions in locations near the K&A Canal including Claverton, Bathampton and Bath. Most of the restrictions were agreed, despite representations from liveaboard boaters that these restrictions will make our lives more difficult.
A group of volunteers who run the Claverton Pumping Station recently started a campaign to prevent CRT from selling the engineman’s cottage on the site due to the risk that the heritage building would be altered beyond recognition or even demolished. However despite an online petition with 599 signatures, the volunteers reluctantly announced that their campaign was at an end. This is the joint statement today (21st May 2018) from CRT, the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, and the Claverton Volunteers:
Two Oxfordshire Narrowboats hire boats were broken into at Avoncliff in the early evening after dark yesterday and valuables including laptops were stolen. The spate of boat burglaries has continued but boaters have reported more information to the police about suspicious activity along the canal.
A recently released programme from ITV West showing the Western Kennet and Avon in 1973, a lovely tour of some well loved places, that have changed somewhat in the interim.
Watch the film on the ITV website
Moorings at Bathampton in a different era
Boat trip on the Charlotte of Dundas
Further to our letter to Claverton and Monkton Combe Parish Councils
posted here; http://kanda.boatingcommunity.org.uk/wordpress/?p=210 we have received the following reply from the Clerk to Claverton Parish Council;
A recent FOI request about policy and the proposed mooring restrictions around Bathampton has led to the receipt of a number of documents and maps being received and passed to us here.
We have just received these and haven’t had time to digest them. We will add our comments in due course.
It is a reflection of the importance of using the Freedom of Information Act that nobody would know about these secret and illegal meetings unless someone, hearing a rumour or two, put in the requests that produced this shocking tale by way of reply.
We list the documents below;
Our correspondent received this document referring to a meeting between Bathampton Parish Council on 15th June 2009 and, realising that there was much more going on here, made the subsequent requests that produced the documents that have so shocked the community.
‘Ian’ mentioned in the letter is Ian Dewey, BANES councillor, chair of the meetings. Mr Dewey owns property in Rennet Court, Bathampton. It is not clear whether he represents himself or BANES council in these discussions. One of the many pratfalls to meeting in secret is this lack of transparency and accountability. We ask Mr Dewey’s ward members to ask him some searching questions on these matters.
Minutes of the meeting between Bathampton Parish Council, a smattering of residents of Claverton and Bathampton and British Waterways, conducted in secret on 10th August 2009.
The same people then met a week later and walked the areas in question, spotted by Ian on his land, they refused to state their intentions although, when pressed, the officials from British Waterways admitted their identities.
Questions posed on 17 aug walk with answers
Of particular note in this document is question 2, reproduced here.
2. What are we going to do about non-continuous cruisers’ children going to local schools?
This is not something that can be addressed by British Waterways on its own. Other
stakeholders involvement is required but this is only likely to happen if a broader project is
commissioned.
This answer is couched in so much garbage that we believe a different spin will be put on this once BW, and the questioner are directly questioned as to the intention of this question which on the face of it would appear to be an attempt to deny the children of boaters attending the local school.
We encourage you to question your representatives, who must by law answer questions put to them, what exactly this question is intended to convey and what interpretation they put on the answers.
What is the ‘broader project’? does this refer to the draconian mooring proposals, a thinly veiled attempt to enthnically cleanse the Limpley Stoke Valley of its boating community.
There was a follow-up meeting at Bathampton Village Hall when British Waterways’ officers presented the Outer Zone proposals, again to the same closed group of people and again in secret.
MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD AT BATHAMPTON VILLAGE HALL ON 28 AUGUST
An email correspondence between BW and one of the putative attendees;
e-mail correspondence btween BANES and BW 23 Sep 09
1 Bathampton Folly Footbridge to Candy’s Bridge 19 Aug 2009
2 Bathampton Candy’s Bridge to white gate (start of permanent moorings) 19 Aug 2009
3 Bathampton White gate (Kennet Side) to winding hole 19 Aug 2009
4 Bathampton & Claverton Winding hole to Hardings Bridge 19 Aug 2009
5 Claverton Hardings Bridge to narrowing in canal 19 Aug 2009
6 Claverton covering the 300 metres south of narrowing in canal 19 Aug 2009
7 Claverton from end of permanent moorings to 500 metres from Dundas Bridge