10 minute read
Fly the co-op
Why community moorings are gaining traction across the length and breadth of our inland waterways
Co-operative moorings, community moorings... Call them what you will but one thing is certain – they’ve become something of a buzzword on our waterways in recent years. In London especially, where the growing number of people living aboard is putting evergreater pressure on mooring space, they’re being hailed as one of the few success stories to date in tackling the problem. So much so that IWA’s Vision for London document in 2019 identified the creation of more community moorings as key to future policy in the capital.
What are they?
Co-operative moorings are owned and run by the boaters living there. They are usually small in scale (most contain no more than ten boats) and often in disused basins or derelict canalside sites.
Paul Strudwick, IWA’s London Region chair, says: “The idea of the community moorings is to use places – basins, off-side stretches – that are currently waiting for development. They’re often locations that can’t have long-term or permanent moorings, or any work that could reduce future options for developers.”
In the same way that charity shops are sometimes given short-term leases for empty units before a permanent business moves in, so a group of boaters might set up a co-operative to look after the land for the duration of the lease and operate the moorings, continues Paul. It’s not a new idea, but in the past, especially in London, efforts to set them up haven’t always got off the ground. “We’re hoping that with IWA support, new co-ops will have more success.”
And indeed they are. The Surge Co-op is a case in point. Al Cree is one of its founder members. His quest for somewhere permanent and reasonably priced to live afloat in London was complicated further by the size of his craft – it’s a beast, at 127ft x 17ft, of a Belgian freight barge. When development around his former mooring forced him to move off in 2016, he started looking at other offerings on the tidal section of the River Lea.
Surging ahead
In the end he found a “friendly factory owner” on the Channelsea River, who allowed Al to moor outside and have access from their yard. When other boaters kept asking if they could moor there too, four of them set up Surge, a non-profit organisation with the primary focus of reanimating Bow Creek with affordable, co-operatively run moorings.
He explains: “It’s not Canal & River Trust land, so we can set up moorings with minimal capital cost. We’re using a standard co-operative housing model where everyone will pay to cover the initial loans/expenditure and generate a constant income for upkeep and creative workshops/community outreach.” There’s also a focus on ecological engagement, with regular river clean-ups and replanting already underway.
Ultimately the mooring will include all the main services, including visitor mooring, plus access for rowers and other watersports. Another key point, says Al, is that all the vessels will be valued beforehand, and that won’t include the mooring, so no one will be able to profit from the sale of their boat in its current location. “That’s one of the key problems in London – people selling their boat and cashing in on where it’s moored. It prices people out of the waterways.”
Above left: Surge Co-op members
working on rules and policy to create affordable moorings.
Above: Pressure on mooring
spaces has increased dramatically in London in recent years.
Right: IWA launched its Vision for
London in 2019, with a commitment to supporting new community mooring initiatives.
Ambitious plans
At Surge’s current site, members are hoping to eventually accommodate eight larger boats, but the group’s ultimate vision is up to 200 moorings along the whole of this tidal river. “There are over 40 known, disused wharves, so historically there would have been hundreds of barges here. There’s so much opportunity and it would be a real shame if we lost this waterways heritage,” says Al.
Not far away is Cody Dock, another thriving creative and community hub on the River Lea in Newham, East London. Gasworks Dock Partnership, a registered charity and social enterprise, has been operating two tidal live/work moorings beside the dock since 2011 and plans are now underway to restore and reactivate the brick-lined dock itself to create a further seven moorings within it. The charity says the new moorings “will form an integral part of [its] sustainable business model and provide an exciting way of continuing the strong community focus that has been at the heart of Cody Dock’s restoration”.
Around the network
But community moorings are by no means confined to the capital. Wolverhampton Urban Moorings on the Wyrley & Essington Canal are a great example of how boaters can help themselves elsewhere on the system too. The group was previously based at Minerva Works, Digbeth, where it used its volunteer experience with CRT to create the Friends of Warwick Bar canal adoption scheme, regenerating a run down and underused section of canal.
When this site was sold, the group secured a longterm lease for a community mooring at a disused wharf in Wolverhampton. In 2016 they set to work transforming it into a community centre and garden for boaters and local land-dwellers alike, with a focus on sustainability and the arts. But the over-riding aim, says the group, is “to create mooring sites that boaters actually want, integrating ecology, history, art and volunteering”.
GREAT SCOT
Across the border, we hear how Communi Moorings Scotland is making waves on the lowland canals
Community Moorings Scotland has taken charge of a 175-yard frontage on the Union Canal, near Linlithgow.
INSET: CMS’s pilot site adjoins a market garden, which sells produce locally.
What is Community Moorings Scotland?
We’re a Sco ish chari , known as CMS for short, which aims to create amazing, vibrant places on the canals of Scotland to ensure a secure future for the communities living on and beside them. Specifi cally, we’re creating venues for boats and people along the lowland canals which connect Glasgow and Edinburgh.
What inspired the project?
In Scotland, Sco ish Canals has an almost total monopoly on moorings with next to no private marinas or linear moorings available. Narrowboater Iain Withers saw an opportuni to provide a di erent o ering and bought a four-acre plot of land with a 175-yard ontage on the Union Canal, near Linlithgow. The land has subsequently been used as a market garden, known as Narrowboat Farm, supplying vegetables locally, but it’s also the pilot site for communi moorings.
How is the community moorings project progressing?
It’s been a long road – for over fi ve years now we’ve been trying to get the project o the ground with Sco ish Canals. It was their chair who fi rst suggested they would support the project in 2015. Since then they’ve continued to back the concept and have put in place everything required to get us up and running, with generous terms. But it’s just been so slow! However, we can’t fault their support of the project otherwise, and we are really close to the fi nish line now with a contract and trading agreement in place. We just have some fi nal pieces of paperwork to complete (mooring and access agreements etc) and then we’ll be up and running. In the end, if this project does everything it can do, in 50 years we won’t remember whether it took fi ve months or fi ve years to start.
Currently we have nine dynamic trustees driving the project ahead, as well as looking at the development of other sites. It has been a learning experience for all concerned and, with the benefi t of hindsight, it is apparent that this initial site at Narrowboat Farm is, in legal terms, an extremely di cult one to establish. We’re keen to share our experiences with other interested parties and, as such, hope to put together a ‘toolkit’ charting the steps along the way.
Have you received much support from IWA?
While IWA has had no direct involvement with negotiations, it has provided a quote for the insurance at this and future sites. Compared with other quotes, the IWA insurance one is approximately a third of the cost and be er tailored to our specifi c needs. For this reason alone, CMS has been a corporate member of IWA.
What do you hope to achieve with CMS?
Two main things: the fi rst is to make a quiet canal busier. By creating venues along the canal which a ract more active boats, the future and heritage of the waterway will be more secure. Put simply, quiet canals silt up and close; busy canals thrive. We want to do our bit to make it a busy canal.
Secondly, we want to create venues that link local land-based communities with the canals to give people more reasons to visit their waterway, as well as opportunities for training. Once we prove the concept with Narrowboat Farm, we’d like to create more venues along the canals which a ract local communities. Not necessarily farms – other landbased ventures may include co-working spaces, cra villages, outdoor activities, who knows? The opportunities are out there once we get a sustainable model together.
CMS explains why co-ops are in everyone’s interests
Boater benefits
Community-owned moorings are an opportunity to be proactive about an important part of our future on the canals and not rely on navigation authorities to provide everything we want from the boating ‘product’. They’re the chance to design moorings from a boater’s perspective: perhaps a rural garden mooring or a safe, private city location? We can go back to square one with the design of our moorings and ensure they suit our needs and wants.
We also get the opportunity to innovate moorings to create value for local communities, for example by growing food, providing venues for holiday and charity boats, and by giving tourists another reason to visit an area.
And community moorings offer the chance to use our skills and run things the way we would want them run. This gives us the opportunity to cut out the ‘middleman’ and get things done when we need them done. It gives us the chance to truly feel that sense of community that boating life offers by working collaboratively.
Something for the community
All the benefits that canals bring to local communities are improved when the waterways are busy with boats. Without active boats, the canals begin to silt up, get covered in weed and risk becoming unused, unloved ‘ditches’.
Active canals, by contrast, attract tourists and other visitors, who bring important income to local communities. And more people are inclined to use the canals and towpaths when they are busy.
Canals are an important part of our heritage and their raison d’être is as a transport network for boats. Without active boats, they are no longer ‘alive’ and simply become museum pieces rather than a constant reminder of an important part of our heritage.
Houseboats also provide a rare opportunity for affordable homeownership. Considerably cheaper than houses and flats, houseboats provide a challenging yet rewarding way of life for some.
Finally, canals provide a great location for recreation. Active canals help secure the future of the waterways and towpaths for use by canoeists, runners, walkers, photographers, boaters and many other groups.
What's in it for the navigation authority?
The Community Moorings initiative reflects (Scottish) Government priorities e.g. the Land Reform Bill, the Community Empowerment Bill, their progressive agenda – and as Scottish Canals are government-funded, it is in their ethos to support it.
Community moorings will promote vibrancy on the canals, increasing boat numbers and movements thus stimulating secondary income for navigation authorities e.g. leases, cafés, trips, tourism and generally boost demand for products and services on the canals.
Community moorings also offer the chance for navigation authorities to support the boating community at a time when many are not satisfied with them. In recent years boaters have been up in arms at the way that boating seems to have slipped down the priority list, so projects like these offer navigation authorities a way to help us help ourselves.
