Victor: Stop that noise

IF LIKE me you get annoyed at the constant noise of noisy generators or boat engines from neighbouring selfish boaters, you can do something about it, and it will only cost you 15 quid.

£14.98 is the cost of the five and a half star rated EBEST Digital LCD Sound Noise Level Meter Measuring 30~130dBA Decibel Pressure from good old Amazon.  With its usual following day service.

However the reading must be from inside your dwelling, and a boat of course in which you are living is classed as a dwelling, and the noise must be sustained for a period of time.

It was the then Secretary of State who ruled in 2008 that noise levels emitted at night should not be more than 10dBA above the underlying noise level, which makes it very clear.  So if the noise level in the bedroom of your boat is 30dBA it follows that the noise from the generator or boat engine must not be above 40dBA.

For a short-term solution we have been told that ringing the police will get a result if your reading is above that allowed.

If the police try the 'private property' get-out, quietly inform them that CaRT, the owners, have decreed it a right of way in allowing walkers and cyclists 24/7. We are told of an instance were the police 'had a word' with the culprits, and the generator stopped, and more importantly stayed that way.

There is now a single telephone number for contacting the various county police forces—101 that should be used as a 999 call would be inappropriate.

For a more permanent solution for any legal action to be taken it needs to be recorded by someone who is qualified to do so. This means that you would need to contact the environmental health agency in the local council and ask them to attend.

The Health & Safety Executive provide a fact sheet at £14, stating the limits.

CaRT's Waterways Code states: Please don't use electricity generators, including the boat's engine, between 8pm and 8am unless you are moored completely out of earshot of other people.

So there it is—you can report them to CART, get the police involved (and report it to CART) or the local environmental health agency if you are permanently moored, (and report it to CaRT) so let's stop those inconsiderate boaters who run generators and boat engines well into the night.

Nothing about canal freight

A report published on Friday by Canal & River Trust based on the Freight Advisory Group findings seems to spell the end for normal narrow and broad canal based water freight carrying as the Group sees the current and potential future role of commercial inland waterways to carry freight on the river navigations of Yorkshire that link to the Humber Estuary and Goole. The picture shows the 'empties' returning for more coal for a power station on the Aire & Calder, alas discontinued, but now transported by lorries by the same company, Hargreaves.

Nothing about freight carrying on the 'normal' canals, from the Freight Advisory Group, it too realising at last that those waterways, now so neglected would hardly be capable of such, not only in not being dredged and being unable to carry loaded barges, but all too often subject to closures. They are just left for the very handy coal and other fuel suppliers.

Victor Swift