Rights of Navigation - a serious question.

[boatone]

I have asked this question before - probably more than once over the years - but have yet to receive an answer.

Peeps often speak on here about our inalienable right to navigate the Thames.

Does anyone know where these rights are defined and identified? No doubt whatecer rights may have originally existed they will have been modified and changed over the centuries.

Where can we find and read any document that clarifies the exact position today?

Where does it say what these rights extend to? Is there any legal obligation on anyone to maintain these rights to meet specific objectives - e.g. depth of water?

 

[Chris_d]

Some interesting stuff here Tony: http://www.ipsofactoj.com/international/2004/Part12/int2004(12)-005.htm

might point you in the right direction, from when the right of navigation of the Hedsor backwater was contested in 2004.

 

[Brayman]

Seems to me you have been posing the question in the wrong circles if you haven't had an answer already.

My belief was that it stems from Magna Carta but I don't find that an easily readable document!

 

[boatone]

Thanks Chris , that may well prove to be an interesting starting point - even if it is 96 pages !

Ian, there's is no problem reading Magna Carta but you do need a very old pair of reading glasses

 

[DWT]

Right of navigation

This extract from the Hedsor appeal seems to cover it:

"From time immemorial public rights of navigation ("PRN") have existed at common law over the Thames, both in its tidal parts and its non-tidal parts. As was stated in the preamble to one of the earliest Acts of Parliament relating to the navigation of the Thames and Isis, the Thames and Isis Navigation Act 1751 ("the 1751 Act"), "the Rivers of Thames and Isis have, Time out of Mind, been navigable from the City of London to .... beyond Lechlade ...." By s. 1 of the Thames Preservation Act 1885 ("the 1885 Act") public rights of navigation ("PRN") both for pleasure and profit were declared over every part of the Thames through which Thames water flowed from Teddington Lock to Cricklade. A provision in substantially the same form is now to be found re-enacted in s. 79 (1) of the Thames Conservancy Act 1932 ("the 1932 Act") which continues in force."

 

[boatone]

I suppose I am really interested in trying to define not so much whether there is a 'right of navigation' (there clearly appears to be) but how we can determine the exact nature or facility of the navigation available and whether there is any statutory obligation on the relevant authority to maintain the navigability to a particular standard.

The river could, for instance, be allowed to deteriorate to the point where only a flat bottomed punt , canoe or coracle would be able to 'navigate'.

 

[jecuk]

A right in that sense wouldn't have a positive obligation re depth etc unless some legislation is in place which sets that sort of standard.

 

[TrueBlue]

A right in that sense wouldn't have a positive obligation re depth etc unless some legislation is in place which sets that sort of standard.

Ay, there's the rub,
You have a Right of Navigation, but no more. It's up to you how you exercise it; if you choose use the previous "Legacy" (of blessed memory) and hit the bottom - as you frequently did - then that's tough luck. Get something with a flat bottom (as suggested earlier - and not for any other reason ).

As a parallel, I have ancient Rights of Common attached to my property, but there is no legislation in force to enable me to access those Rights.

In similar fashion Public Footpaths confer a Right to use them but that Right does not of itself oblige any body to maintain them in a usable condition.
In that case there is separate and modern legislation that goes some way to address that issue.

I'm sure you have read the Thames Conservancy Acts and related legislation but I don't think there is anything in them that's hugely useful. It's left to whoever is in charge of the River to set up standards, but no obligation or actionable cause to keep EA (or whoever) in line.

 

[stuhaynes]

The river could, for instance, be allowed to deteriorate to the point where only a flat bottomed punt , canoe or coracle would be able to 'navigate'.

A bit like our canal system then....

 

[ianc1200]

We're canoeing from Cricklade to Lechlade tomorrow (was going to be mid September, then late October...) but a friend has tried to upwards from Cricklade High St Bridge and got a bit of abuse from a landowner. Is it the fact the above mentioned Acts did not include the waters above Cricklade which effectively means there is no right of navigation upstream of there? Isn't there any other more general right to navigate on a river?

 

[byron]

but a friend has tried to upwards from Cricklade High St Bridge and got a bit of abuse from a landowner.

I'm no expert on the subject but the fact is that even if the Landowner owns the river bed he doesn't own the mineral rights. It is then my understanding that if a boat is on the water then the landowner has no cause to berate you as he doesn't own the water. However if you accessed the water by crossing his land or step through the water on to the river bed then theoretically you are trespassing. It's all very nebulous.
Further complications arise. Example: I own the land to the centre of the river but do I have the right to stop someone anchoring say 3' from my bank? After all the anchor will be in my land. I guess this is where Shysters make their dosh by interpreting the finer points.

 

[ianc1200]

Similarly, just upstream of the Cricklade bridge is a small weir; easy to get out and haul over, but I suppose our feet will be on the bed of the river, the concrete structure of the weir etc.
Re anchoring, it's often said there's a right to anchor anywhere in the river - apart from areas excluded by order - for 24 hours. I wonder about the legality of this "right".

IanC

 

[boatone]

Re anchoring, it's often said there's a right to anchor anywhere in the river - apart from areas excluded by order - for 24 hours. I wonder about the legality of this "right".

Well, it's quoted in the EA User Guide to The River Thames - Page 22:

"Anchoring and mooring
• In general, boats have a right to anchor in the
Thames for up to 24 hours in any one place
provided no obstruction is caused to the
navigation channel."

 

[TrueBlue]

Cricklade is the "head of navigation" as defined in the various statutes, so I suspect anything further upstream is subject to whatever the riparian owner thinks he can get away with..

I suspect that the EA anchoring right is more of a permission from their point of view rather than a Right in common law.

As Byron says if he owns the bed of the river, then logically he can determine who may drop their pin in it. However there's often nothing logical in the Law, more a matter of custom and practice and precedent.

As the Americans are at Runnymede today celebrating OUR Magna Carta, which I think, established some navigation rights, perhaps we should remember that these rules were established long before pleasure cruising was invented - so they're not a best fit.

 

[Lotus_John]

Ian, The Thames – definition
++++++++++++++++++++++++
“The Thames” has the meaning assigned to it by the Thames Conservancy Act 1932 (Section 4) as amended by the
Thames Conservancy Act 1950 (Section 3). In effect it means so much of the Rivers Thames and Isis as is between the
east side of Town Bridge at Cricklade, Wilts, and an imaginary straight line drawn across the River Thames approximately
242 metres downstream of Teddington Lock; and also so much of the River Kennet as is between the River Thames
and an imaginary straight line drawn across the River Kennet 64 metres eastward of the east side of the High Bridge at
Reading, Berks.
++++++++++++++
The right to Anchor is also in the 1932 act.
If it is not the Thames then there is probably no right of navigation.
What an earth were doing paddling in rain on Friday?

 

[ianc1200]

Luckily it was yesterday. A bit on the cold side but a great day out. The ladies running the gym class in the hall next to Cricklade High St bridge let us use their access to launch, we did go up through the bridge but the current was fierce through arch and we couldn't more than a few feet beyond. I couldn't possibly say which canoe capsized within sight of the bridge (but he does run a web site full of details of trips in a narrowboat where nb's shouldn't go, particularly on a Tuesday).
I last did this about 10 years ago when the pub at Castle Eaton had a sign "no hireboats". The sign now says "Canoeists welcome etc".

Some piccies at

http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/Tour_10/Cricklade/Cricklade.html

IanC

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

I would expect that most of the arguable bits of the Thames navigation rights have been nailed down in case law over the years, if such a thing as an searcheable online database of same exists we might be able to check. Even the more modern issue of boatlicenceless hippy in manky grp claiming "rights" vs EA Inspector must have been pinned down, quite possibly involving Legal Aid.

 

[Jaysay]

Having run aground in Kings Lock weir pool (i know, I know, but I was killing time waiting for my wife to open the lock), I complained to the EA that they could at least have put up a warning sign, provide navigation buoys, or cordoned off the area.
I got a very nice reply which basically said that everyone was entitled to go anywhere on the Thames, its creeks and tributaries by ancient right. Hence, the EA could not cordon off shallow areas because that would be illegal. As to buoyage and signs, they could not afford it and, in any case, they only guaranteed navigation in the fairway, ie the middle one third of the river. In summary, they said, you could go anywhere on the Thames or its creeks etc but you ventured off the fairway at your own risk.
So there you go. Makes a bit of a nonsense of those little 'private' backwaters with nasty 'keep out' signs on some parts of the river, and explains why some cruisers took the ground while alongside in Windsor a few years ago, doesn't it?

 

[boatone]

As to buoyage and signs, they could not afford it and, in any case, they only guaranteed navigation in the fairway, ie the middle one third of the river.

This is the bit I think needs further consideration. Where the fairway (i.e. the deepest water) IS the 'middle third' of the river there's no problem. But , in some places the deepest water may be off to one side or the other - particularly at bends in the river. If, in these places, the middle third is not safe for navigation by vessels meeting the draught restriction for that stretch there should be some indication of where the fairway lies - perhaps a port or starb'd hand buoy indicating the limit at a particular depth in line with the declared fairway depth for that particular stretch.

 

[No Regrets]

Buy a suitable Boat for the River in question then ;-)