Get the police involved in cutting down towpath mobs

WE WERE so fed up of the never ending stream of people passing our boat on moorings on the Staffs & Worcs that we got the police involved, writes Hayley Sebastian.

The moorers got together in the evening after suffering so many people passing our boats and some causing a nuisance at Easter, with one moorer bringing up that the police were fining people using their cars to get to places to exercise that wasn't what you would call essential, then it was brought up that people were using the closed pub yard to park their cars and coming through the hedge to the towpath.

Against the rules to exercise

Then I reminded them that you had an article from the Cheshire Fire Service warning about the narrow towpaths, so why not ring the police and tell them people are using the pub car park against the rules to exercise?  This was taken up and a fellow moorer who had been in some official capacity or other said he would do it.

So come the Easter Sunday and one of us near the pub rang him to tell the car park was filling up and people were coming through. so he got on to the police, and within 20 minutes a police car came, parked by the gate and stopped people coming in and waited for those coming back from the towpath and they were obviously handing out fines.  They stayed for a few hours and the result was a great reduction in people passing out boats, which the Canal & River Trust notice, that they ignore, says they should not.

Too many idiots

I might add that we are not adverse to people passing the boats, as have made some acquaintances over the years, but since the coronavirus it has become stupid as too many idiots are now congregating, with three daft men brought their own beer to the pub car park then walking up and down the towpath supping it then of course slinging their cans in the water and making a nuisance of themselves in the bargain.

But we won't be having it today, for Terry is about to ring the police again.  And that's the point of this: Don't put up with it and if there is a car park near you you can bet there will be cars using it to get on the towpath, that we all know does not allow correct social distancing, so give the police a ring, and so do your bit to get people to follow the government's rules to stop the coronavirus being spread.