Crime pays for two boats

Published: Monday, 19 October 2009

MANY boaters have met Adrian Lane, one of the riverside rangers on the Leicester section of the Soar, whose small team have won a bid for funds from the Leicester & Rutland Criminal Justice Board.

This is the Community Cashback scheme, which is funded from the seized proceeds of local crime, with the rangers getting a whopping £46,500, which is to be spent on two shallow drafted boats that will enable the team to clean up the formerly inaccessible back waters of the Soar. In turn this will raise the numbers of volunteers able to take part.

In addition to patrolling the river on the look out for vandal trouble spots, with Adrian shown with his motorbike, the small dedicated team of rangers look after the navigation and old back rivers, between Glen Parva and Belgrave.

They currently use an ex-BW maintenance craft ‘Cranfleet' to clear the debris and rubbish that has inevitably ended up in a city waterway. It is the flagship of the Greenlife Project which was set up 15 years ago to allow the participation of the willing public in a range of waterway and wetland schemes that have proved very popular with the volunteers.