The newsletter of South London and North & East London Branches
Kings Cross Visitor Moorings Central Regent’s Action Plan Meeting In this issue:
Kings Cross Visitor Moorings Chairman’s Reports Regents ‘Quietway’ London Walks Cavalcade Social Reports Local Campaigning Future Events AGMs
A meeting chaired by Jonny Zander and attended by Sorwar Ahmed, Jon Guest and Michaela Kahn from CRT and Andrew Walker, Boaters’ Ombudsman, was held in October. Chris Bushill attended and reported that the packed room was about 50/50 boaters and local residents. One liveaboard who felt his views were not sufficiently represented insisted on a show of hands. The question was asked, ‘would all boaters raise their hands’ about 20 people did so. He then wanted it restricted to liveaboards. About 4 people put their hands down. This clearly showed that the most unrepresented group were the non-liveaboard boaters. There was a long discussion about the Islington Visitor moorings with no very strong conclusions. Residents wanted a permanent caretaker mooring. The liveaboards present were all ones who travelled continuously, one even saying she had gone as far as Berkhampstead and another that he travelled 300 miles last year (he didn’t say whether this was 30 times 10 miles there and back). One seemed to have a very intimate knowledge of the area from a 14 day stay. Chris made the point that, as a genuine visiting boater, he had been totally unable to find a place to stop in Islington or elsewhere in London last year. Sorwar admitted that he was frustrated by not being able to respond quickly enough to complaints and lacked the ability to follow up. Michaela, a CRT Mooring Ranger, said that they only had one and a half Rangers to cover 100 miles of canal.
Continuous Cruiser? Seen on the Hertford Union Canal Live-aboard Boats at Kings Cross in 2014 Welcome to new North and East London Branch Members: Ms Kate Graham Mr James Valentine & Ms Kelly Gowers Mr L Johnson We look forward to seeing you at future events.
In both the discussion on Islington and on Kings Cross moorings, the residents were very vocal with horrific tales of waking in bedrooms filled with smoke and diesel fumes. The residents at Kings Cross didn’t want any mooring outside their houses which they said were the closest to the canal in London. Chris questioned there being any casual mooring given that Sorwar had already commented on the difficulty of enforcing such moorings. He also suggested that the resident’s concerns would be largely answered by making all the moorings 2 day visitor moorings as the boats would have fully charged batteries and wouldn’t need to run their engines. Roger Squires suggests that a lack of short term moorings was one of the reasons why Black Prince have withdrawn their hire fleet from London. The branch will continue to press for a comprehensive mooring strategy in London with an emphasis on addressing the short term mooring problem and improving the experience of other towpath users and residents.
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