Left high and dry
Friday, March 6, 2015
rttimes.co.uk
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Established 1873
Inside
Hull of a problem: Boaters said that no alternatives have been made available to them TE90351
Left high and dry
Priest guilty
McSweeney abused boy at council-run children’s home Page 2
Data breach
Pupils’ private data online for months Page 3
Forgiven
Christ Church Teddington lets M&S off the hook Page 6
New bylaw means eviction for long-standing boaters George Odling george.odling @london.newsquest.co.uk
A community of boaters will have nowhere to go when a Richmond Council bylaw turns them into criminals. From 1am on March 13, owners of boats moored on council-owned or managed land without permission could be fined or imprisoned. Every 24 hours the boat is attached to the land would count as a new crime. Most affected will be a group of more than 10 boaters who have lived on the Ham side of the river at Teddington Lock for between three and nine years. Tabby Booth, who owns her boat with her partner James Heslip, said the community had not been offered any sort of compromise and was willing to rent moorings from the council. She said: “We are willing to
co-operate, but no alternative is being offered to us. No one is talking to us as human beings. I don’t think Richmond Council realises this is the situation. There is no other place for us to go. It will cause lots of other problems on the waterways as all these boats are going to have to move around constantly. “We have called and emailed for advice but it doesn’t work.” Council cabinet member for environment, Pamela Fleming, said the council had long been under enormous pressure from residents to do something about illegal mooring. But the boaters felt many complaints against them were unwarranted, and Ms Booth said they had rarely been informed directly of any issues. She said: “People complain about the area getting untidy, but we always take a lot of care and clean up after ourselves and other people.
“This is where we live, after all. “A lot of the complaints have apparently been about our dogs not being on leads. It is a dog walking path, and our dogs are as well behaved as any of the others that walk along here, they are not vicious at all.” Mr Heslip, who also works with Ms Booth at a children’s art school in Clapham, said: “I have been woken up by someone out on a jog sticking their head in the boat to shout ‘pikey scum’, people have had sugar put in their engines and signs have been put up that said ‘river pikeys operating in this area’. “Narrowboating is a traditional English thing, especially somewhere like Richmond, which is known for the river, and it is just being stifled. They are trying to gentrify the area but by getting rid of the boats they are ruining its character.”
Coun Fleming said the council did everything it could to publicise a consultation on the bylaw, which took place late last year, but added she had not been contacted by anyone from the community. She said: “It has been in process for a long time so I would have assumed that the people involved would have known about the bylaw and made some alternative arrangements. I don’t want to be unsympathetic, but they have known about it for a long time.” She said she would discuss other mooring options with council officers. Ms Booth said: “If we want to live an alternative lifestyle, why shouldn’t we? We have never taken anything from anybody. We are not trying to be difficult. We can’t just disappear and if we don’t get any help finding somewhere to go then it’s just shifting the problem.”
rttimes.co.uk
55p
Established 1873
Inside
Hull of a problem: Boaters said that no alternatives have been made available to them TE90351
Left high and dry
Priest guilty
McSweeney abused boy at council-run children’s home Page 2
Data breach
Pupils’ private data online for months Page 3
Forgiven
Christ Church Teddington lets M&S off the hook Page 6
New bylaw means eviction for long-standing boaters George Odling george.odling @london.newsquest.co.uk
A community of boaters will have nowhere to go when a Richmond Council bylaw turns them into criminals. From 1am on March 13, owners of boats moored on council-owned or managed land without permission could be fined or imprisoned. Every 24 hours the boat is attached to the land would count as a new crime. Most affected will be a group of more than 10 boaters who have lived on the Ham side of the river at Teddington Lock for between three and nine years. Tabby Booth, who owns her boat with her partner James Heslip, said the community had not been offered any sort of compromise and was willing to rent moorings from the council. She said: “We are willing to
co-operate, but no alternative is being offered to us. No one is talking to us as human beings. I don’t think Richmond Council realises this is the situation. There is no other place for us to go. It will cause lots of other problems on the waterways as all these boats are going to have to move around constantly. “We have called and emailed for advice but it doesn’t work.” Council cabinet member for environment, Pamela Fleming, said the council had long been under enormous pressure from residents to do something about illegal mooring. But the boaters felt many complaints against them were unwarranted, and Ms Booth said they had rarely been informed directly of any issues. She said: “People complain about the area getting untidy, but we always take a lot of care and clean up after ourselves and other people.
“This is where we live, after all. “A lot of the complaints have apparently been about our dogs not being on leads. It is a dog walking path, and our dogs are as well behaved as any of the others that walk along here, they are not vicious at all.” Mr Heslip, who also works with Ms Booth at a children’s art school in Clapham, said: “I have been woken up by someone out on a jog sticking their head in the boat to shout ‘pikey scum’, people have had sugar put in their engines and signs have been put up that said ‘river pikeys operating in this area’. “Narrowboating is a traditional English thing, especially somewhere like Richmond, which is known for the river, and it is just being stifled. They are trying to gentrify the area but by getting rid of the boats they are ruining its character.”
Coun Fleming said the council did everything it could to publicise a consultation on the bylaw, which took place late last year, but added she had not been contacted by anyone from the community. She said: “It has been in process for a long time so I would have assumed that the people involved would have known about the bylaw and made some alternative arrangements. I don’t want to be unsympathetic, but they have known about it for a long time.” She said she would discuss other mooring options with council officers. Ms Booth said: “If we want to live an alternative lifestyle, why shouldn’t we? We have never taken anything from anybody. We are not trying to be difficult. We can’t just disappear and if we don’t get any help finding somewhere to go then it’s just shifting the problem.”
