NABO News Editorial Oct 17

Consultations, towpath cycling and veg management

Editor Peter Fellows has much for members to comment on:

NABO Council held its first teleconference meeting in September and deemed it sufficiently successful to be worth repeating next year. These meetings will be listed in NABO
News and if you would like to join in, please let the Hon. Sec. know in good time and he will send you the access telephone number. Staying with NABO business, I have included
in this issue nomination papers for the 2018 Council to be elected at the AGM in November, which will be at the Wolverhampton Boat Club (WV8 1RS). The AGM will follow the same format as last year, with Council reports and elections in the morning and an open meeting after lunch. Please let the Hon. Sec. have any topics that you would like to discuss and I hope we will see you there.
There has been a lot happening on the waterways since the last issue in the summer, with the CRT licensing consultation still in progress, reviewed by Mark Tizard, and about to reach Stage 3. CRT will contact all licence holders for their views, so please make sure to have your say. David Fletcher reports on his enjoyable first visit to the Huddersfield Narrow Canal in convoy as part of a ‘Roving Rally’. The technical article in this issue is on installing solar panels, with contributions from four of the council members. After another ‘accident’ involving
speeding towpath cyclists, I’m putting out a call to gather evidence that can be used to actually do something about this menace. And for the first time, I’ve written a letter to myself,
as Editor, on the varying standards to which vegetation is managed by the different CRT waterway areas.
Mike Rodd reports on developments on the Mon & Brec and K&A in his regional rep’s report.
We also have a heartening account of a quick-thinking boater who prevented a tragedy in a lock on the Leeds & Liverpool Bank Newton flight. Finally, NABO News has been taken by the British Library as reference material for several years, and it is pleasing to hear that the National Library of France also now wants to hold it as source material for researchers.