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Category: EA and others
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A Zoom-based meeting of this valuable forum brought together representatives of NABO, RBOA, CBOA, DBA,TBA, HNBC and the General Secretary, Michael Stimpson.

As always, the meeting gave us an opportunity to share our views on a number of key issues. Being largely London focused, the first discussion related to CRT’s request for input on the handling of the over-populated situation on the London waterways and it was agreed that the problem in London (and elsewhere on the system) was folk who had no interest in the waterways buying boats to live on. Adding to the problem was the difficulty of turning existing moorings into residential moorings or indeed in creating new ones, and it was mentioned that the existing planning regulations needed to be addressed. It was noted that there were many off-line locations available which could be used to provide residential moorings especially along the main line of the Grand Union. RBOA agreed to provide a paper on the subject to circulate to members, and the General Secretary will discuss the situation with the EA and CRT.

Read more: National Inland Navigation Forum (NINF) meeting: 17th October 2020

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Category: EA and others
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This online meeting of TNUF was, rather like the recent NNUF (previously reported on), yet another example of how not to use the available technology – in this case a voice only system was used, with most users being muted until being asked if they had any queries following EA presentations. Those who said they did were then noted and given time to comment but there was really no opportunity for any proper debate, and most queries answered by “we will take that up after the meeting”.

In truth, most of the material presented was a rerun of the NNUF materials with of course, more reference to the Thames situation. I must say, though, that this time the EA presenters did try not to just read through their previously provided material but to give what proved to be good summaries. The overview of Thames work being undertaken now and in the near future was particularly impressive and it is clear that the additional funding provided was being well used.

Read more: Thames Navigation Users Forum: 20 October 2020

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Category: EA and others
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This online meeting of NNUF proved to be somewhat difficult as only a few of the attendees were able to make full use of the available video conference tools. Most attendees were limited to a phone-in link with only a few of the 30+ attendees being able to sign into the full conference facilities. (I could sign in for vision but not sound!)

Unfortunately, as we have reported on in the past, the EA fell into the trap of long presentations (often just reading the slides we had received beforehand) and this was made worse on this occasion by the poor communications technology. Much time given to telling us how well they had coped with the difficulties posed by the lockdown: Whilst this was of course true, it did not need almost a quarter of the meeting telling us about it. The communications problems then made it difficult for us to comment.

Read more: National Navigation Users Forum 6 October 2020

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Category: Other Live Issues
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DEFRA has published its intentions over solid fuels, coal and wood, which are proposed to become the Air Quality (Domestic Solid Fuels Standards) (England) Regulations 2020, coming into force on 1st May 2021. The legislation will need to be debated in both Houses of Parliament before it comes into force, but the dates for these debates are yet to be confirmed. The Regulations will phase out the supply of traditional house coal for domestic combustion and wet wood sold in units of up to 2m3, and introduce sulphur and smoke emission limits for manufactured solid fuels. The changes will be phased in between 2021 and 2023, with sales of small volumes of wet wood being phased out by 2022 and sales of traditional house coal by 2023. Stoves are not banned and these policies do not seek to prevent their installation or use. The intention is to ensure that people move away from burning more polluting fuels to less polluting fuels (from burning wet wood to burning dry wood and from traditional house coal to smokeless coal and low-sulphur manufactured solid fuels). Details are available at www.gov.uk/government/consultations/air-quality-using-cleaner-fuels-for-domestic-burning/outcome/summary-of-responses-and-government-response.