It's a great thing this flexibility; the forecast today was pretty dire, with heavy showers and the possibility of thunder for most of the day. So, since we're ahead of schedule, we decided to stay put. Rode Heath is a good place to do that, with a decent local store just a short walk away and a pub for those who want to miss out on the cooking.
It got clammy enough in the rain that we lit the stove, and as a result have been sweltering a bit off and on. When it's not absolutely tipping it down, the sun comes out and it's quite warm, so we've been opening and closing the hatches all day. We managed a short walk after lunch and got caught in one of the downpours, but no matter, our wet things have been drying on the rack in the cratch with the bow doors open to let the warmth of the fire onto them (we've dropped the cratch cover, naturally).
Main item of interest from a boating point of view has been an announcement by Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, that local authorities are to be encouraged to facilitate people who can't afford land based homes to live on boats; he's offering financial inducements to the councils to do so. Obviously, if this means marinas find it easier to get planning permission for residential moorings, all well and good, but the worry must be that it results in the existing lines of hippy hutches on the offside being officially licensed to stay there.
BW would get more end of garden type mooring fees, and the council would be relieved of the need to rehouse them. It would be just bad luck on those of us who believe that the cut is meant for navigation, and who now had to spend yet more time creeping past at tickover. Time will tell how it works out, but it needs careful watching. RBOA, aka the Hippy Hutches Protection Society, has already welcomed it of course; I wait to see what NABO says. It's no good expecting much from IWA in this context, it'll probably take them a couple of months to wake up to the initiative.
/blur
Meantime, we'll head off tomorrow, in better weather hopefully, again heading for the top of Church Locks.
6 comments:
If you read the full press release, it's fairly clear that they're referring to purpose built residential mooring sites rather than just letting people clutter up the canals. The full quote from Sally Ash suggests the same thing.
That's good; pardon my paranoia!
Mind you, this is BW and the Government we're talking about…
Cheers
Bruce
hi,
Despite what Adam wrote, the number of HHs will increase.
Curious state of affairs.
Mike,
Good blog but still can't get used to the colour change!.
Having read the press release in full, it doesn't actually add much to the BBC story. Only Sally's response actually refers to purpose built sites, and I'm sorry, I don't trust her to mean what she says a lot of the time.
More dedicated residential sites would be good, but the ghastly example of the Agenda 21 moorings on the S Ox shows what's more likely to happen frankly. BW could resolve their disputes with the western K&A and Lee and Stort moorers by just creating more linear residential mooring, as they did with Agenda 21.
We need to watch this one very, very carefully.
Cheers
Bruce
The Lee Consultation is out - see http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/listening-to-you/consultations-and-reviews/completed-consultation-reports
Predictable?
Richard, ID
Very, I'm afraid. Anyone remember the Agenda 21 initiative on the S Ox? I have a vision of the same thing happening here, with the LA paying to convert informal towpath moorings to long term residential ones.
Over on the canals-list, someone has pointed out that it would be much cheaper, rather than digging out new marinas, just to do big bit of tarmacking and put mobile homes down on it, if the real aim is to provide cheap housing.
Cheers
Bruce
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