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Leisure Moorings allow 1 week stay a year!?


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3 hours ago, Jess-- said:

I note that on the application they ticked the box to say that the site proposed is NOT within 20 metres of a watercourse

even though they have decided that charging peter, paul and mary lots of money for water discharge into THEIR watercourse is a fantastic revenue earner....

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3 hours ago, Jess-- said:

I note that on the application they ticked the box to say that the site proposed is NOT within 20 metres of a watercourse

I think a watercourse has to have flowing water. So arguably a canal is not a watercourse, and neither is a pond or lake.

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4 minutes ago, David Mack said:

I think a watercourse has to have flowing water. So arguably a canal is not a watercourse, and neither is a pond or lake.

I think you need to look at what CRT are charging who and what before you query any relevance to flowing water.

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9 minutes ago, David Mack said:

I think a watercourse has to have flowing water. So arguably a canal is not a watercourse, and neither is a pond or lake.

A pedant would say (me a pedant perish the thought) the definition of watercourse (in my dictionary at least) is:

a brook, stream, or artificially constructed water channel.

So isn't a canal a constructed water channel?

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10 hours ago, Wiltshire Moonraker said:

A planning application was submitted and then withdrawn on North Warwickshire Planning website <Planning Application Search> 

PAP/2017/0349 on http://planning.northwarks.gov.uk/portal/ might prove educational. 

It’s difficult to comment further without knowing why the application was withdrawn. Various possibilities come to mind. 

10 hours ago, Wiltshire Moonraker said:

A planning application was submitted and then withdrawn on North Warwickshire Planning website <Planning Application Search> 

PAP/2017/0349 on http://planning.northwarks.gov.uk/portal/ might prove educational. 

It’s difficult to comment further without knowing why the application was withdrawn. Various possibilities come to mind. 

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1 hour ago, Naughty Cal said:

No it doesn't.

In planning terms, a canal is not a watercourse.

The relevant part of the form is "Assessment of Flood Risk" and the specific question is "Is your proposal within 20m of a watercourse (river, stream or beck).  If this is answered with a 'yes' then the Environment Agency are consulted for flood risk comments.  The Environment Agency do not comment on canal matters.  For that, the statutory consultee is CRT who are consulted on all applications within a specified distance of a canal (including feeders, disused canals etc.)

So the correct box was ticked in this case.

In general, ponds and lakes are consulted with the local Wildlife Trust, although this may be at the discretion of the planning officer.  Usually any issues with ponds are related to great crested newts coming to harm.

Edited to add:  obviously CRT do not comment on canal for which they are not the navigation authority.  As far as I know.  I imagine Peel Holdings etc give comments.

Edited by Dave_P
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8 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

In planning terms, a canal is not a watercourse.

The relevant part of the form is "Assessment of Flood Risk" and the specific question is "Is your proposal within 20m of a watercourse (river, stream or beck).  If this is answered with a 'yes' then the Environment Agency are consulted for flood risk comments.  The Environment Agency do not comment on canal matters.  For that, the statutory consultee is CRT who are consulted on all applications within a specified distance of a canal (including feeders, disused canals etc.)

So the correct box was ticked in this case.

In general, ponds and lakes are consulted with the local Wildlife Trust, although this may be at the discretion of the planning officer.  Usually any issues with ponds are related to great crested newts coming to harm.

 

Is there then a separate question "is this development within 20 metres of a canal ?"

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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Is there then a separate question "is this development within 20 metres of a canal ?"

No. It may be helpful, but, in practice, our mapping system automatically flags up any application which falls close to any land under CRT control.

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/planning-private/planning-and-design/the-trust-as-a-statutory-consultee-for-planning-applications/tiered-consultation-zone

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10 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

No. It may be helpful, but, in practice, our mapping system automatically flags up any application which falls close to any land under CRT control.

Wouldn't your mapping system also show if the development was within 20 metres of a watercourse ?

Our local Planning departments apparently doesn't as our application was (being in the Lincolnshire Fens) bounded on 3 sides by 'drainage dykes' with 'running water'.

Its over with now, but our Planning Officer told lies and invented laws such that I ended up with involving our MP, a QC, the Governments Chief Rural Planning Adviser and the Council Chief Excecutive and (fortunately) was granted (the unnecessary) PP & received compensation after the threats of going to the press started things moving.

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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For the purposes of flood risk assessments a canal comes under the section "other water features" which also covers reservoirs, lakes and ponds.

I should know this as it is part of my job :rolleyes:

A watercourse does not have to be a flowing body of water.

ETA: A dry ditch capable of conveying water for example can be classified as a watercourse.

Edited by Naughty Cal
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13 hours ago, Jerra said:

A pedant would say (me a pedant perish the thought) the definition of watercourse (in my dictionary at least) is:

a brook, stream, or artificially constructed water channel.

So isn't a canal a constructed water channel?

Not sure the relevance of the definition of watercourse, but whether or not canals are included in that definition, the canal flows into a tributory of the River Anker opposite these moorings. So whether a constructed water channel or a natural flowing body of water, both are at Grendon.

On the far side of the canal there is regular severe flooding across fields and roads. That's well known in the area and the roads have flood warning signs.  On the mooring side of the canal the "flooding" comes mainly from waterlogged fields and gardens and overflow gullies which pass from the canal edge across a garden and then into fields. The ducks certainly enjoyed swimming on what was previously crops and lawns when we had the recent heavy rainfall. :D

As for the planning applications, it's all a bit of a mystery. Originally the application wanted to change 8 of the leisure moorings into residential ones with electricity. But CRT made some mistakes/told some porkies on the form about the current facilities. And none of the current moorers seemed interested in having residential facilities either. Then the council came to visit without CRT's permission to interview boaters and they told me that they want 20 residential moorings. Which is ridiculous as there isn't the space or the depth of water. So the council seem to be wanting to make money out of residential status moorings to have gone to the trouble of trespassing on CRT land and taking down the details of their tenants without telling CRT! 

Aside from this I'm still curious about the 1 week a year rule and why it's been introduced at all, the process that was gone through to come up with it because it sounds arbitrary, and why they've not mentioned it on other adverts at the same mooring site.

Edited by BlueStringPudding
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17 hours ago, BobJF said:

This is not  specific to Grendon. The same wording is appearing on some of the other current vacancies elsewhere.

 

That's interesting because I've not seen it before. Where else has this been stated? And I wonder why they're introducing it sneakily and not making it widely known through their newsletters or press releases. 

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19 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

For the purposes of flood risk assessments a canal comes under the section "other water features" which also covers reservoirs, lakes and ponds.

I should know this as it is part of my job :rolleyes:

A watercourse does not have to be a flowing body of water.

ETA: A dry ditch capable of conveying water for example can be classified as a watercourse.

Not where planning applications are concerned.

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22 minutes ago, BlueStringPudding said:

Not sure the relevance of the definition of watercourse, but whether or not canals are included in that definition, the canal flows into a tributory of the River Anker opposite these moorings. So whether a constructed water channel or a natural flowing body of water, both are at Grendon.

On the far side of the canal there is regular severe flooding across fields and roads. That's well known in the area and the roads have flood warning signs.  On the mooring side of the canal the "flooding" comes mainly from waterlogged fields and gardens and overflow gullies which pass from the canal edge across a garden and then into fields. The ducks certainly enjoyed swimming on what was previously crops and lawns when we had the recent heavy rainfall. :D

As for the planning applications, it's all a bit of a mystery. Originally the application wanted to change 8 of the leisure moorings into residential ones with electricity. But CRT made some mistakes/told some porkies on the form about the current facilities. And none of the current moorers seemed interested in having residential facilities either. Then the council came to visit without CRT's permission to interview boaters and they told me that they want 20 residential moorings. Which is ridiculous as there isn't the space or the depth of water. So the council seem to be wanting to make money out of residential status moorings to have gone to the trouble of trespassing on CRT land and taking down the details of their tenants without telling CRT! 

Aside from this I'm still curious about the 1 week a year rule and why it's been introduced at all, the process that was gone through to come up with it because it sounds arbitrary, and why they've not mentioned it on other adverts at the same mooring site.

So it sounds like moorers who were previously 'under the radar' are no longer so.  The Council is desperate for more income so they're looking to get Council Tax from moorers.  The moorers have kicked up a stink and the CRT have grossly over-reacted with their '1 week' demand, in order to placate the Council.  It all sounds depressingly plausible from CRT and Council Officers who likely don't understand the relevant law, so are hiding their incompetence by playing games with each other, where the only losers are boaters.

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19 minutes ago, BlueStringPudding said:

 

That's interesting because I've not seen it before. Where else has this been stated? And I wonder why they're introducing it sneakily and not making it widely known through their newsletters or press releases. 

Two I quickly spotted were Lincoln and Shireoaks, both sites that do also have residential moorings.

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18 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

No we work for the developers as consulting engineers.

That's your answer then.  Ticking 'yes' in the box would trigger a consultation with both CRT and EA on the same issue, which could lead to contradicting comments.  Nobody wants that.  So I say again, the form was filled out correctly.  

As an engineer, the parameters of the documents you produce are determined by the requirements of your client.  Not by planning legislation.  If your client asks you to include a pond along with other landscape features, then that's what you will do.  

As an aside, when determining larger planning applications, we are often deluged with reports which have been commissioned by the applicant.  Although they must be useful to the development in some way, they are often not relevant to the planning application.

 

Edited by Dave_P
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43 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

That's your answer then.  Ticking 'yes' in the box would trigger a consultation with both CRT and EA on the same issue, which could lead to contradicting comments.  Nobody wants that.  So I say again, the form was filled out correctly.  

As an engineer, the parameters of the documents you produce are determined by the requirements of your client.  Not by planning legislation.  If your client asks you to include a pond along with other landscape features, then that's what you will do.  

As an aside, when determining larger planning applications, we are often deluged with reports which have been commissioned by the applicant.  Although they must be useful to the development in some way, they are often not relevant to the planning application.

 

Our documents have to be produced  to comply with the relevant planning legislation.

Despite what some people might think developers are not left to just build what they choose where they choose. They have to jump through many hoops to get there.

It is our job to guide them through those hoops and get the relevant authorities backing along the way. Most often easier said than done although some local authorities are far more proactive than others.

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