New restriction at Bell Weir

[Bran]

Transiting upstream at Penton Hook, there is a warning that if your draught is over 4ft you should keep to the left of the marker bouys at Bell Weir lock.
This will be interesting when it gets busy:

 

[Outinthedinghy]

I wonder what it is down there. A lot of general debris does pile up there during floods.
Or is it a sunken vessel.
Surely not beyond the wit of the EA to haul it out whatever it is or is it compromising the layby ?

Not a good place for a draught restriction.

 

[Outinthedinghy]

Also slightly odd to quote a depth.

I will be down there quite soon as on way back from Lechlade but even with 3ft4 draught I don't think I would like to moor where there are two buoys anchored.

Could foul the props me thinks.

Needs removing ! If Dave the Hero was still there I bet it would get sorted. But he isn't.

 

[Scapegoat]

Interesting.

We reported a hazard, after grounding in this exact same spot, to the EA on 22April. This is the EA response received on 23 April:

”Thank you for your report regarding the submerged obstruction on the tail of Bell Weir lock. This is a concern, we are going to deploy a patrol launch with sounder to investigate this issue as soon as possible and mark the reported hazard to prevent issues with other vessels. We will then look to take further remedial action as required dependant on what the obstruction is.”

and on 13 May:

“ I can confirm that two of our Technical Officers conducted a reach patrol on the morning of Friday 30th of April, in Patrol Launch LODDON, equipped with sounder. They made multiple slow passes over the area shown from your correspondence (port side of Lock Tail Layby), and also spent some time prodding with an extended boat hook, but were unable to locate and structure or debris that would have impacted a hull within 1.4m of the surface. An amount of woody debris was removed from chains underneath the landing, but this did not match with the description of the incident you encountered.

I have an action to interrogate our levels data to investigate the possibility that there was an unusual occurrence meaning water levels were below our standard range when the incident occurred, but haven’t had a chance to do this yet. We also have a new resident lock keeper moving to Bell Weir shortly and I have shared your report with him so that he is aware.”

 

[Scapegoat]

Spoke to the Lock keeper today and apparently there is an unidentified obstruction that is silting up. Needs dredging ( thought that naughty word had been eliminated from EA vocabulary) but EA no longer have the necessary equipment (scrapped it I think) so have to put a dredging contract out to tender. VERY expensive as dredged material is considered “contaminated“ so has to be disposed of appropriately at high cost.
If a tender is awarded, Bell Weir is at the top of the queue.

Suspect they’ll probably have buoys there for some time/years to come…..

 

[Bran]

Lock keeper said he was desperate to get it sorted, even suggested ploughing through it a few time with one of their tugs, 5ft draught, so it could be broken up.

 

[Scapegoat]

Lock keeper said he was desperate to get it sorted, even suggested ploughing through it a few time with one of their tugs, 5ft draught, so it could be broken up.

Be interesting to see what, if anything, gets done to resolve it.

 

[GAJ52]

I've noticed over the last couple of days work has begun over the under water obstruction to Bell Weir lock.

 

[Scapegoat]

I've noticed over the last couple of days work has begun over the under water obstruction to Bell Weir lock.

That’s good news. Be interested to know how it occurred in the first place. And if there is any connection with the hard surface works at Hythe End