EA stoppage notice 11 years late!

THERE is one thing in Canal & River Trust's favour that it does tell us of its stoppages in time, but not so it appears the Environment Agency, as it has just issued one 11 years late!

It was 11 years ago that it stopped navigation through Forty Foot Lock onto the Forty Foot River (the lock re-named Welches Dam Lock by the Agency) by constructing a fence at its entrance, Alan Tilbury tells us.

Never published notice

But the new Chairman of the Peterborough Branch of the Inland waterways Association, Chris Howes, has challenged the loss of 'statutory navigation' with the Waterway Minister, telling that the Environment Agency had never published the necessary Closure Notice.

But now such a notice has appeared—11 years late!  Though craftily entered on a Team-Up Waterways Calendar, even though such a calender never existed at that date. Also, no such notice has ever appeared on the main Government website page that lists Environmental Agency closures and restrictions.

No provision

Neither is there provision in the Anglian Water Authority Act 1977 to allow the Agency to close a recreational waterway other than for 'the construction, maintenance or alteration of any lock or other work in or adjoining the waterway', which in any case is only temporary.

The Inland Waterways Association is campaigning for the lock to be re-opened.