British Waterways has released an update which confirms the waterways restrictions that will be in place in the South East from end April to early June (post bank holidays to Wed 6th June)
Summary – There are no changes to the restrictions that have been in place over the last few weeks. The one exception is addition of a further opening weekend for the Northampton Arm. Click here to open a PDF file Restriction map with legend. This will be displayed around the South East over the next week.
Details are becoming available on the outcome of a High Court case involving mooring rights and other licence matters.
Licence renewals since January have included a notice saying increases from April 2012 will be 6.4%. This is based on the consumer price index of July 2011 (4.4%) plus 2%.
British Waterways met with London Boaters this week. BW identified a number of areas where they are looking at improving facilities. These include reinstalling water points at Islington and Kensal and a possible new point at Mile End. They asked for suggestions of where new rubbish points could be provided that have road access for them. There were discussions about recycling, sanitary facilities and compost toilets, the range of areas where BW are willing to provide free 10 week moorings outside the central restricted area. There was also a suggestion of providing an exception from the 14 day rule for boaters who wished to continue to move this summer.
Following closures on the K&A and GU canals, BW has alerted boaters to the drought conditions that may affect boating during 2012, through their Waterscape website. Vince Moran, BW's Operations Director said that It is no secret that parts of England have had the driest year for over 100 years which may pose problems for a proportion of our canal network.....