Canal and River Trust Council elections 2015

I am standing for the CRT Council under the private boaters category and would obviously like your vote. Information on the vote can be found at CRT Council Elections and the formal Electoral Services site with all the candidates statements is at the Electoral Services site.

I’ve not been formally involved in CRT before, but after reading through the 150 words each candidate is allowed, I thought that I had much to offer the council, some not covered by the other candidates. My 150 words are:-

“Interests: Narrowboats , cycling (riding and campaigning), Rugby League, Speedway, Trade Union representation.
Why stand? To help represent all canal users across the diversity of users, we have a finite space that needs people to understand the need to share.
I am the owner, since 2012, of a nb moored on the Slough Arm of the GU. In this time I have experienced the delights of rivers, canals and the problems with a lack of boating facilities on key parts of the system. Unfortunately these facilities have yet to catch up with demand and CRT needs to look at different ways of delivering services to all communities and ensuring general maintenance is not forgotten. Before owning our boat I was a regular hirer of the BBC Club boat, Savoy Hill. I've been a volunteer Towpath Ranger, attendee at canal clean-ups and help support local IWA branches.”

and the lovely photo......

More detail of the above statement: We have a mooring (non residential) at High Line on the Slough Arm of the Grand Union and take our boat, Salar, out as often as we possibly can. In the last 3 years we have cruised with St Pancras Cruising Club (to the Royal Docks and twice with them on their tideway trips down to Brentford) as well as cruising the River Wey, Oxford ring (including Lechlade) and this year the Lee and Stort. We are often seen heading up the GU to the Hemel area and back again and have plans for the K & A next year depending on work commitments. I take as many opportunities as possible to talk to all boaters we meet, both on the cut, at various land based meetings (CRT’s London Waterway forums, CRT AGM, local IWA meetings etc.) and festivals such as Cavalcade and Rickmansworth. It is obvious that the canals are now having to meet the demands of a diverse user base, many are new to the canals, unsure of what they need to do, should do or shouldn't do. Most are less than complementary of CRT as an organisation. As you will have seen my interests are cycling and cycle campaigning, a thorny issue when is comes to towpaths and personally I think CRT (at least in London) are trying to address the negatives that you often read about but more needs to be done. I am also a Unison rep at the London Borough of Southwark - where my job is to try to get more people to take up active transport and reduce private car journeys. Both my sporting teams, London Broncos and Eastbourne Eagles have been through better times but I am ever the optimist and success will come back to both clubs. If elected I will try to represent the people who have private boats on the waterways, whether it be for cruising or living. We all live on the water, just for some it is their home.

My knowledge of the work of the Council is as much as I have read in the CRT Council pdf plus the published minutes and agendas but I am puzzled as to why we havn’t heard from our existing council members who, one assumes, were elected to represent people such as myself. It will be my intention, if elected, to use social media and web channels to update people as to what the Council is up to, what I have been up to and answer as many questions as I can. There is a comments section on this blog which I hope to use to respond to any questions you may have and for those of you who are in the Twitter world I already use this (although I haven’t yet mastered listening to the discussion and Tweeting at the same time). I post under the Twitter name of @Roggys

The election is open from the 13^th November through to the 11^th December and you should all either receive an email of postal communication but judging by those I have chatted to already many just don’t read any communications from CRT or have never heard from them about the election. Will be interesting to see the response data plus ratio of postal votes against electronic votes.

Please feel free to ask about me, my thoughts or views on pertinent issues. You might not like the answer but at least I’ll try. I promise to continue this, if elected and offer to attend any meeting (if possible) in the SE region and perhaps further afield – although I can’t promise to attend an evening meeting at the Ripon Motor Boat Club without reasonable notice (and cheap rail fares if such things exist).

I've also posted some our timelapse canal videos on my YouTube site

Regents Canal - drained

Looking towards Mile End Lock

In 2014 CRT drained part of the Regents Canal in East London so as to repair parts of the banking and remove decades of rubbish that finds its way into the canal.

This year they have done similar from Old Ford Lock to Mile End lock. See the photos I took on Sunday 6th December, lots of interesting items in there including a table tennis table that had found its was from the student accommodation opposite - the other 2 are still there, this one looked a bit battered though.

I'm sure the Butler/Belfast sink caught some peoples eyes. CRT are taking this opportunity to repair the banking, its a really popular mooring location, perhaps due the close proximity of the Palm tree public House.

Table Tennis table in the middle of the cut

The entrance to the Hertford Canal on the left

It was then off to the Canals in Hackney User Group who were holding a Christmas event in Kingsland Basin, offering narrowboat trips (steered by Father Christmas) and tree and bulb planting by the towpath. A really good buzzy event with excellent beer donated by the nearby Hackney Brewery and a variety of food all raising funds for a Hackney homeless charity.

Photo courtesy of CHUG

London Waterways Partnership Annual meeting

London Waterways Partnership Annual meeting - December 2015

I attended the 2015 annual meeting which was held at a recently renovated The House Mill which is part of the Three Mills http://londonunveiled.com/2013/05/08/three-mills-island/

It consisted of the opportunity to ‘network’ whilst partaking in some nice wine (I was told soft drinks were available) plus canapés. Part way through Sir Brian Fender (Chairman) gave a short speech about the work of the Partnership and was followed by presentationon volunteering, the new London Moorings strategy and the London CRT boss Jon Guest spoke in more general terms. Many of the topics covered were also discussed at last months London Waterways Forum, https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/original/24393-forum-slides.pdf Not sure I know much more about the work of the Partnership but having the opportunity to speak to other attendees about rowing, towpath cycling, volunteering was interesting. Photo is of Sir Brian addressing the audience.

NBTA Winter Warmer

Thursday 12th November 2015

The London branch of the National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA) held a 'Winter Warmer' event at a community centre not too far from the River Lea in Tottenham and given some 'differences of opinion' at the recent CRT AGM I thought it would be interesting to go along. The London branch have had a number of meetings with CRT staff and are working with them to identify new locations for boaters services, they are a now looking to widen their reach to as many boaters as possible. The special guest speaker; David Luff, who was involved in a campaign to stop British Waterways pushing boat dwellers without a home mooring off the water in 2003, spoke about that campaign and the proposed rule that boaters without a home mooring had to move 120 lock miles every 3 months and how this could be related to present times. It was a extremely well attended meeting, with a very young audience and some very nice food cooked by volunteers on the premises. Thanks to all for their hospitality.

Middlesex IWA meeting

Tuesday 10th November 2015

The Middlesex branch of the IWA hold monthly events and this month saw the return of Tony Brooks to talk about diesel engine maintenance. For those who aren't aware Tony used to present the RCR (River Canal Rescue) engine and electrics courses at their base in Alvechurch before he retired and still is the technical expert for the Canal Boat publication. One of the first things I did after buying our boat was to book myself onto both courses, £100 and £130 for a 12 hour course is a excellent investment (plus travel and accommodation costs of course).

Tony spoke for about 45 minutes covering basic boat servicing and maintenance tips then answering questions from the audience. I think its unlikely that anyone else out there knows as much about canal boats as Tony does, he has published his course notes online and anyone can refer to them. Very enjoyable evening and the draft Rebellion beer was good too.