Shooting at Hunt's Lock

IN RESPONSE to the reported incident at Hunts Lock, If we all just looked at isolated incidents we would never leave our homes. writes Irene Emery.

We are part of the community at Hunts Lock, it is a magical place to live and we have a really peaceful life, The  Weaver is more than worth a visit.

Never had issues

The report of an incident at Hunts Lock is very isolated and a rare occurrence. Over Christmas we had several moorers many return visitors who love the Weaver and many spend weeks here. We live at Hunts Lock and we also moor our boat here, but have never had any issues.

Hunts Lock and the mooring there have some very individual and amazing features. All these can be seen without leaving your mooring. There is the dry dock that is unique in as much as it can take bigger boats, we have some beautiful large old work boats that fill the locks.

Famous boatyard

Then there is Yarwoods' originally a famous boat yard visited by Laurence of Arabia, under a false name to sea trial raf Auxiliary Aquarius (pictured). There are in excess of 20 historic boats sometimes more that moor in the historic dock which was the launching basin of ship and canal boat builder W J Yarwood and sons.

The BBC and ITV have filmed nature programmes here with Chris Packmam and Julian Carey visiting. It is also known as Sparrow Hawk Island due to the unique filming of sparrow hawks and Chris Packman was involved in the narrating of a film made right by the moorings by a resident who is passionate about wildlife. You can Google this under Sparrow Hawk Island.

Olympic rower

The rowing club where Matt Langridge who gained bronze, silver and most recently gold Olympic medals in the last three Olympic games rows and trains here. They row 365 days a year. There are daily walking clubs, joggers and dog walkers who enjoy the place. Then the fishermen who spend many a day and night sat at Hunts Lock. The viaduct sometimes carries over the old steam trains and enthusiasts come here to take photographs.

At Hunts lock there is a community and we are all proud of where we live, that consists of home owners, the resident boaters, the cruisers that stay for a while, and rowers, joggers, dog walkers and fisher folk . We all look out for the area.

Locks manned

For eight months of the year the locks are manned and no boaters have reported anything of this nature to the lock keepers. I think the article puts a very negative view on a place that is visited both on foot and by boat by thousands of people each year.

A two minutes walk away is the Weaver Hall Museum and Workhouse, which sits next to the local pub, the recently refurbished Bowling Green which is an historic 16th century coaching inn and a lovely place to dine or sample traditional ale.

Stunning to cruise

The entire Weaver is stunning to cruise and I would thoroughly recommend Hunts Lock or any of the other moorings as a destination for boaters.

The incident would have been an isolated one; the article reads like someone visited the Bronx not a beautiful location.

Given the influence that the media has over where boaters deem safe I think the article is pretty misleading.
I do understand that it was printed as sent.

[The article reported boats being shot at at Hunt's Lock with paintwork damaged by pellets: Boaters shot at]