| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Brentford Waterways | |
| Posted by: | Nigel Moore | |
| Date/Time: | 19/01/10 16:33:00 |
| There is obviously a shared misapprehension here, about the nature of the moorings scheme: it is NOT a residential one and in fact is conditioned to PREVENT any such use. The application is purely for use by non-live-aboard craft, which must be either recreational or visitor. Another key point is a seeming failure to appreciate that the BCC objection is very specific in location terms. The objection is to placing permanent mooring structures [regardless of the use of any boats moored to them] right in the entrance of the canal where all expert analysis [and, historically, British Waterways themselves] acknowledged a safety issue in mooring boats even without the extra width of pontoons. The BCC response to the planning application noted that objection would not be made if the mooring facilities did not involve a pontoon except where the canal widened, closer to the Thames Lock. This was ignored by the proposers and their backers, doubtless because a scheme amended along those terms would no longer be the commercial proposition wished for [as opposed to the S106 obligation relied upon to justify the scheme]. The comments thus far are deserving of more detailed replies, which I will attempt to furnish later, but for the present remember that residential moorings do not enter into the picture, and it is the Environment Agency who are firm that no more residential use of the foreshore will be countenanced by them. |