Defra consultation - have you heard?

Is the Medway Automatic?



All the Medway weirs are automatic even the tidal lock at Allington,which is manned 24/7 all year.
Lock keepers were all done away with during 1970s and the cottages sold off..All the duties in the entire navigation now are carried out by around 4 or five peeps including those at Allington.
 
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TrueBlue said:
Heavens to Murgatroyd! - I'm not an IWA member and don't go to rallies or shows as a rule, so I'll be in mufti.
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The same goes here, not taking the barge, will be staying on a friends boat.

The thing to remember is that many people that own narrowboats wont go on rivers as they are scared of them.
That figure for BW licences includes a large number of cruisers as well from the Trent and other waterways in that area.
 
oldgit said:
Is the Medway Automatic?



All the Medway weirs are automatic even the tidal lock at Allington,which is manned 24/7 all year.
Lock keepers were all done away with during 1970s and the cottages sold off..All the duties in the entire navigation now are carried out by around 4 or five peeps including those at Allington.
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Nearly right OG. Seven Navigation Officers and two Resident lock keepers at Allington make up the Upper Medway navigation team. Three people on call 24/7 365
Nearly all the sluices are fully automatic except Eldridge Sluice which is still hand wound for the moment. Allington sluice will be fully automatic by September including flood conditions. The navigation still owns seven lock keepers houses including two at yalding and one at east farleigh.
The introduction of registration on the Medway instead of lock fees reduced the need for lock keepers, even though up river past yalding none were residential, except East lock which had a lock house until the 1950's.
 
Dangling wellies in the ditch and teaaaaaaaaaaa.

Having been on the BW waterways for many years and also on The Thames I have witnessed first hand the chronic waste of our licence fees and the tax payers money by BW.

I have always been impressed by the buisness like and proper attitude of EA. However, With BW, having people just being employed and not being given a job to do is not good enough. Much better if BW contract out all work and if the wellie danglers want to go on strike well? Yawn, nothing will change, let 'em do it. When you come to anylise the situation, most people in this country do not even know the canals are there. Hardly a reason for a protest march outside Westminster!

I stand for no diversion of funds from EA to BW.


Alan.
 
the_wanderer said:
Having been on the BW waterways for many years and also on The Thames I have witnessed first hand the chronic waste of our licence fees and the tax payers money by BW.

I have always been impressed by the buisness like and proper attitude of EA. However, With BW, having people just being employed and not being given a job to do is not good enough. Much better if BW contract out all work and if the wellie danglers want to go on strike well? Yawn, nothing will change, let 'em do it. When you come to anylise the situation, most people in this country do not even know the canals are there. Hardly a reason for a protest march outside Westminster!

I stand for no diversion of funds from EA to BW.


Alan.
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Don't know if you have noticed but that's not what is being proposed,
since when has that got in the way of some good scare tactics.
 
Louis has kindly agreed that I can make this available and you can download a pdf here

So can someone in a couple of sentences give a quick sum up of the problem.
Is this just the usual middle england NIMBY resistance to any change whatsoever no matter what the circumstances ?
 
oldgit said:
Louis has kindly agreed that I can make this available and you can download a pdf here

So can someone in a couple of sentences give a quick sum up of the problem.
Is this just the usual middle england NIMBY resistance to any change whatsoever no matter what the circumstances ?
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Why don't you read it and make your own mind up, instead of taxing my brain cell ..... ? :D
 
oldgit said:
Louis has kindly agreed that I can make this available and you can download a pdf here

So can someone in a couple of sentences give a quick sum up of the problem.
Is this just the usual middle england NIMBY resistance to any change whatsoever no matter what the circumstances ?
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Louis was asked at the meeting if it was NIMBYism.
His answer
YES absolutely

I might point out that his emails contain some serious errors re support for his cause.
Neither the DBA or RBOA support his position, NABO has yet to take a decision on the matter and from memory the RYA support a single navigation authority.

My impression gleaned from the meeting is that within a short while there will be a new navigation authority which will come out of the ashes of BW and EA.

Personally I think that as with all government consultation it will go on and then the minister and the treasury will make the decision that suits them best.

One thing that Medway users will have to be aware of is the amalgamation of the Southern and Thames region within EA which could mean a harmonisation of licence fees and you know that the only way that will go will be up!
 
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By making Louis' emails available I was not endorsing or commenting on their content. I do feel. however, that this issue is important to us and the email exchange does highlight issues that need to be better understood and discussed.

Cervinia said:
Neither the DBA or RBOA support his position, NABO has yet to take a decision on the matter and from memory the RYA support a single navigation authority.
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None of those associations can claim to be representative of the majority of Thames boaters. In fact, maybe our biggest problem on the Thames is that there are too many fragmented organisations for us to be represented effectively at times such as these?

My impression gleaned from the meeting is that within a short while there will be a new navigation authority which will come out of the ashes of BW and EA.

Personally I think that as with all government consultation it will go on and then the minister and the treasury will make the decision that suits them best.
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Sounds like you are suggesting it is a 'done deal' :D
 
Interesting stuff Tony, difficult to draw any conclusions on which would be better for the Thames both BW and the EA will be short of funds in the future. My gut feeling though is that the Thames should stay with the EA at least they understand the rivers problems and its unique character.
 
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boatone said:
None of those associations can claim to be representative of the majority of Thames boaters.
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None of the organisations claim that. However Louis was using the names of these organisations to add weight to his argument when in at least two cases their clearly stated aims disagree with his position.

The DBA position is that we have always supported the idea of a single navigation authority.
 
boatone said:
Why don't you read it and make your own mind up, instead of taxing my brain cell ..... ? :D
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I did and could not make any sense of what the problem is ?


Old Chinese Proverb....If you want to make enemies.........Try changing something ? :0
 
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Whoever runs the navigations in the future will been bound by the acts of parliament that ensure that there is always a right to navigate.

Not knowing what the future holds, surely this is a case of better the devil we know?

Cameron is reducing public sector spend by 30% over 4 years or something like this, so assuming spend on the EA navigations will reduce by a pro-rata amount, surely this will be the best deal to accept rather than BW or a trust running their versions of the navigations??

Being cynical, I am just convinced that BW or a trust will bleed the Thames dry of all its potential income (including selling/ renting lock keepers houses) and still won't fund it to the same level as a drop of 30% with the EA would be.

IB
 
Ivyblack said:
Whoever runs the navigations in the future will been bound by the acts of parliament that ensure that there is always a right to navigate....
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AFAIK There is no "right of navigation" on BW's waters, one purchases a license to use.
There is a right of navigation on the Thames, one purchases a registration to be on the water.

Now, I've not explained it well, and it is a "nice" distinction which even a specialised lawyer might have trouble explaining in its detail.

I'm trying to say that the two organisations are different because of that distinction. Not to mention that EA does the flood control function for both.

Doubtless the politicians will sweep aside objections, but underlying rights go back to Runnymede (on the Thames as it happens), and trying to railroad that issue could cause an issue - if any group is prepared to stick their head above the parapet.

Trying to separate the navigation from flood control doesn't make good sense to me.

Help, I'm getting out of control....

While folks dissect my ramblings, please would someone (Byron) help - in days of yore; Thames Water, Thames Conservancy, who was responsible for flood control, and spending thereon.

Nurse, Nurse,
 
Doesn't the River Severn have flood control by EA and navigation by BW? There must be other navigations that do it this way?
 
Actuality

Julian, you accuse me of NIMBYism (sic). You are darn tooting.
I have not met one EA registration fee payer who is prepared to consider a single penny of their fee being spent anywhere other than on the Thames. That was me being NIMBY. I presume you consider anglers and fishermen to be classified as nimby when they declaim any suggestion that their rod licence income, nearly £24m, be spent on anything other than angling. I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the man that suggests that.
The almost 9,000 motor vessels registered on the Thames are, in the main, unable and uninterested in cruising the BW waters and certainly have no desire to see their fees used for the upkeep of the canals. Visitor contributions and Gold licence proportions are for use on the Thames and that is where that money should be used. I am not aware of anyone at Defra suggesting this should not be the case.
Julian, you seem to be unaware that representatives on behalf of NABO, RBOA and DBA all attended a meeting of TUGn. It was TUGn I represented at the Defra consultation. The signatories have all agreed with the TUGN position paper. That paper, in simple terms, agrees with the aspiration of a single waterway authority. Every member of TUGn, save IWA, do not wish to see the EA waters to be absorbed into the BW third way trust until the trust has been set up and proved its ability to take on the EA waters. At that time the EA stakeholders will decide if they feel such a move will enhance the opportunity of maintaining or improving the service offered to EA stakeholders. during the formation of this policy.
Julian, you state I have made some factual errors. Please elucidate. I stand by everything I have written. Please elucidate with your facts and sources.
Your comments over the supposed "done deal" seems to impugn Sarah Nason's assurances where she quite clearly gives a clear undertaking and you categorically suggest the reverse is the case. That is at best disrespectful.
The proposed merging of the EA South and Thames Region into the South East Region has enabled you to make another quite unfounded comment about "licence" fees' (we don't have licences but registrations). I was at the RFERACs presentation of this quite excellent proposal. Harmonisation of the EA waters registration fees was, of course of no relevance to this project.
This topic has been rejected ad nauseam by stakeholders. It still resides with Stuart Taylor at Bristol but I suspect he is losing the will to live on this matter. It is unlikely in the present climate harmonisation of charges is top of anyone’s list.
I am quite prepared to have my name and my e-mail available to anyone who has serious questions they wish to have elucidated.
Regards Louis Jankel lbj@cixoffice.com
 
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