"Mike Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: This is puzzling me. It seems to be about moorings at Ladies Bridge on the K&A. Is this the bridge near the wide, not far west of Wootton Rivers on the long pound? If so, it is in the middle of nowhere, so I assume these are transient moorings?
So what is the case about? Any boat can moor almost anywhere against the towpath (given a lack of dredging arrears), and may do so as long as it does not impede navigation AIUI. I would have thought that this means that transient mooring as a use is established along all waterways. Long-term moorings may be in a different situation, but I'm assuming these aren't planned at Ladies bridge. A distinction has certainly been made on quite a lot of occasions wrt residential moorings. However, even this is doubtful, as I have the transcript of a planning inspector's decision saying effectively that the use is mooring, and what goes on in the boat is irrelevant. So, the fact that the local council is trying to enforce it is worrying, but perhaps not dreadfully so (provided BW defends itself intelligently). >A few years ago, when I was active in London IWA's Planning & >Navigation Committee, I gave evidence on their behalf in a case like this on >the Thames Tideway, at Downing's Roads, Bermondsey (on the south bank a >little way downstream of Tower Bridge), where local residents had persuded >the Borough of Southwark to try to remove some residential barges from a >historic barge roads, on the grounds that there was no plannng permission >for residential use. I believe this case is not a good comparable. The current operator of the moorings was able to show that there had been barge moorings at this site for several hundred years, and seems to have had a good case for ancient rights. The argument in the end boiled down to how many barges were allowed to moor there, rather than the principle of whether any mooring at all was allowed. At Ladies bridge, AIUI there have never been any long-term moorings, so the argument is over what BW is allowed to do rather than what it has been doing. I suspect this is really another example of the pervasive ignorance that is so often found on the part of local authorities about anything to do with waterways. I hope so, anyway. Adrian Adrian Stott 07956-299966
