Yachting and Boating World forums: State of the River

The following is an e-mail I have sent to various parties in the hope (??) that someone will react to the ever worsening situation on the river.

I write this from the perspective of over forty years boating experience, twenty five of which I have been based on the Thames using the river extensively between Letchlade and Teddington.

The question is, what is the Environment Agency doing (not doing) to one of the Country’s major assets? The overall consensus of river users on the Thames, is that we are currently witnessing the rapid demise of, what was once, one of the most beautiful, vibrant and enjoyable leisure facility open to all members of the public.

If there is any doubt about this rapid demise just read through the following facts :-

1. For about the fourth time this year, it may be more, we are holed up in the marina because the river is yet again in flood. Records show that the rainfall this year is no worse than previous years, yet we are constantly experiencing the virtual closure of the river, despite paying nearly £800 in licence fees to the EA. What are they doing with this money, apart from paying obscene salaries to the higher echelons of the EA?
2. It is an unquestionable fact that we are paying more and more for our annual licence, and receiving less and less for the ever growing financial burden. The majority of locks have never looked so scruffy. The lock keepers have been told to grass over what were beautiful flower beds, even to the extent that I am informed that at one lock, the lock keeper has been told to lay astro-turf to save on maintenance. They are no longer allowed to cut their grass on the lockside banks, it being deemed unsafe after one particular lock keeper was told it was contrary to Health & Safety legislation, although he had been cutting the grass for over twenty five years without mishap. They are no longer allowed to cut their hedges because last year a lock keeper knicked his finger cutting his hedge. Now based on Health & Safety excuses, the hedges remain uncut, albeit they now spend a fortune employing outside contractors, in theory anyway! Yet again a bureaucracy is using the Health & Safety legislation for their own ends, rather than using the legislation for what it was actually meant for.
3. The financial cost of installing “electric out of hours facilities at the locks for public use” is a scandal. The reason given is to provide better facilities for the boating public, yet we all know the real reason is the imminent loss of the residential lock keepers. And why pay for the additional electric facility, when every lock below Oxford already has electric provision, yet the public are not allowed to use it. So what do the EA do, they duplicate the facility at out expense.
4. Since I have been on the Thames the EA, and its predecessors, have guaranteed minimum depths throughout the river. These guaranteed depths are no longer maintained. Try navigating through Benson lock, or Clifton Hampden. Due to the inactivity of the EA you cannot guaranteed being able to transit these two points on the Thames, thereby severely restricting our use of the river, despite an ever increasing licence fee. I read recently that the EA were unable to maintain the depth upriver of Benson lock because the shape of the river and the currents in this area, makes it difficult to maintain the required depths. Can I ask when did the shape of the river change at Benson? Certainly not in the past twenty five years that I have been on the river. Secondly, why has all the dredging equipment been sat at Benson for weeks now, without any action being taken?
5. The EA have achieved one important thing. They have totally killed off what is now a thoroughly demoralised workforce. I have never known an industry where the staff are so demoralised. They are operating in a virtual “police state” type environment. Going back they were keen to chat with you as you transited their lock. Now they are so paranoid about “Big Brother” at Reading that the first question you are invariably asked is when you instigate a conversation with them is “You’re not from the press are you?” We are under threat of dismissal if we talk to the press. What a way to put a “people type” organisation.
6. The demoralised state of the lock keepers is indicative of the lowering of standards in their dress code. It is true that some lock keepers maintain, as a matter of their own pride, a commendable dress code. Others, sadly resort to jeans and tee shirts while on duty. This all adds to the overall assessment that the entire structure is falling to pieces.
7. The river and the moorings are becoming choked with dossers and river tramps, the majority residing on the river bank in unlicensed boats. When I questioned this by a telephone call to the EA, I was told in a most patronising way that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I offered to meet the river inspector every morning at Tesco’s moorings in Reading to prove my point. Needless to say, that despite this site being a mere few yards from his office he declined the invitation. I wonder why. His next comment did astound me however. He stated that a licence was not required on the river unless the boat is under way. From this I can only assume that all the unlicensed boats on the Thames have been parachuted in. What a feat!! It obviously been organised by someone other than the EA!!
8. I was told of a conversation just the other day with an Inspector on the EA launch, a sighting more rare nowadays than spotting a chocolate tea pot. When the Inspector was asked why are you not out and about as frequently as you used to be, he said that we don’t venture out as much now because of the constant abuse we suffer from the genuine boater trying to use the river. Says it all really doesn’t it!!
9. During this latest river closure we went onto the web site on Saturday morning to find out what the current red board situation was, only to find that the web site hadn’t been updated for the weekend. When is the river used most? When is the information going to be of most use? Could I suggest without too much common sense being required, possibly at the weekend. Accepting this the EA do not find it necessary to update their site for weekenders!!
10. I understand that the EA are actually becoming concerned at the ever decreasing river usage, to the extent that they are surveying boaters who have not re-licensed their boats for the river this year. They must be absolutely naive and operating in a vacuum, if they cannot establish the real facts based on what everyone is writing in magazines, journals and the press. Nowadays the EA is solely reliant on canal boats coming onto the river from the canal system. Such usage is a comparatively new phenomenon, certainly as far as numbers are concerned. It is a fact that because the numbers of canal boats on the river is a relative new situation, they are not aware of how good the river USED to be, and how it is declining.

The only option to some of us, and sadly not all can do this, is to leave the river that we once loved, enjoyed and had a great deal of respect for, and move the boat abroad to Holland or France, where boaters are respected, encouraged and not “ripped off” as is now the current situation on the Thames via the “management” of the Environment Agency. With an exodus of previously loyal boaters this will exasperate the current situation on the river, but what option do we have. The Environment Agencies management of the river has been shown to be at the best, totally inept and at their worst totally useless.

Reading through the above you really do realise how serious the situation has become. I trust that someone in authority, from wherever, will have the courage to deal with the issues detailed above, and above all will have the courage to engage in a discussion with me, other boaters, organisations who are all of like mind and are becoming more and more distressed at what the Environment Agency are doing to the river. Above all please, please do not treat those showing extreme concern at the current situation in the patronising way in which you done so in the past. The concerns registered here are genuine and I am sure I speak for most, if not all River Thames users. We deserve to be listened too.

Peter Dowell