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The launch of the Environment Agency's on-line river level reporting service for England and Wales, which makes use of the national network of gauging stations to augment flood warnings, also offers paddlers planning to travel to the River Kennet the opportunity to remotely view current conditions before leaving home.
The Kennet gauges are located at
- Winterbourne Monkton on the upper Upper reach
- Marlborough on the Upper reach
- Knighton - two gauges on the Upper reach between Ramsbury and Chilton Foliat
- Eddington at Hungerford where the Middle reach starts
- Newbury on the Lower reach
- Theale (Barble Bar) on the Lower reach
- Blakes Lock, Reading on the Lower reach not far from The Thames confluence.
There are a further 12 gauges reporting the flow for the Kennet tributaries of the Og, the Aldbourne, the Dun, the Shalbourne, the Lambourn, the Winterbourne, Kingsclere Brook, the Enborne, and the Foudry Brook.
However, only the last three of the main River Kennet gauges are of much use to paddlers, in that they are located on sections of the river where paddling is generally viable, and only Theale gives a good river level indication in terms of partial independence from the water of the canalised Navigation.
The Theale gauge currently shows the river to be significantly low within a bandwidth of typical range, but, hey, it's summer and it hasn't rained much recently.
The Kennet with low water levels at the Theale gauging station at the end of June 2010, but Barble Bar is still going.
Another post on public access to "our natural heritage", with some reflections on recently promised political change and the reality of vested interests preserving the status quo...
...if you'd rather just get on with your canoeing and kayaking on the River Kennet please disregard the following text ;-). If you have any concern about the continuing attempted infringement of your rights, read on...
Before the 2010 UK General Election:
On the 28 April 2010 The Telegraph's Environment Correspondent Louise Gray reported online under a heading of "Lib Dem plans for the environment" , that "Greenpeace have described the Lib Dems plans for the environment as the most ambitious of any party."
Within a summary of Lib Dem policies, her article noted a position that would provide a "Full access code for the countryside. Everyone will have statutory access rights to most land and inland water – as long as they follow responsibility law.”
This opinion may well have been based on the tone, if not the implicit statement, of section 4.1.2 of Lib Dem Policy Paper 93 from July 2009, titled "Our Natural Heritage: Policies on the Natural Environment". At the time of writing it remains available for public view here.
Note the proud claim in Policy Paper 93 that Scottish Lib Dems had been instrumental in introducing the "Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 [...] establishing a statutory right of responsible access to land and inland waters for outdoor recreation, crossing land and some educational and commercial purposes."
At grassroots level it was clearly perceived that Lib Dems would promote such a policy in England and Wales, as reported in this blog's post of 16 April 2010.
However, by the eve of the General Election any pretense to such aspirations had been dropped, at least by the higher echelons of the Lib Dems, when, together with the Conservative and Labour parties, they signed up to The Angling Trust's "Angling Manifesto" [click on the document link at the bottom of the Angling Trust web page to read a copy].
With a clear statement of Angling Trust policy to actively seek limitation on non-angling users of our waterways signalled by the phrase "voluntary access agreements are the only way to manage an increase in water based recreation on inland waters", it was unsurprising to see that it was Huw Irranca-Davies who confirmed the Labour government's stance of the previous 13+ years, and almost inevitable that it was Richard Benyon who, in possibly confident expectation, set forth the Conservative statement of continuing alliance with a particular interest group over the wider population.
After the 2010 UK General Election:
In the brief political interregnum during the formation of the current coalition government it would appear that an 'understanding' of this position of limitation was confirmed on the issues of river access and navigation rights for the English and Welsh electorate.
On the 12 May 2010 Telegraph Political Correspondent Rosa Prince was one amongst many when she reported "In a historic press conference in the Downing Street garden, the Prime Minister and his new Deputy Prime Minister committed themselves to 'three key principles' of 'freedom, fairness and responsibility'."
These principles were clearly not intended to include paddlers, and by the end of the following day BBC News Environment analyst Roger Harrabin had written "And what of the Liberal Democrat manifesto promise of a broader right for people to roam in the countryside in the Scandinavian fashion? There is no mention of that in the joint statement and it may be that Conservative landowners have barred the gate."
The 14 May 2010 saw confirmation of Richard Benyon as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Natural Environment and Fisheries at DEFRA. His responsibilities include inland waterways (including British Waterways), coastal and wider access, countryside and rights of way.
On the 16 May 2010 Nick Clegg stated that "Real, big change never comes easy. So it would simply be wrong for us to let this chance of real change pass us by. [...] the chance to hardwire fairness into our society, the chance to change Britain for good." Hollow words.
As for the news from Wales, the position of the National Assembly on navigation and access to rivers has changed over the last year from this to this, and their final report into "Access to Inland Water in Wales" doesn't really deserve further comment other than to say another sell out.
Although it doesn't include the River Kennet, a new book from well known international paddler Pete Knowles is now available for anyone searching for a wider range of canoeing and kayaking destinations in the region . The excellent "Pub Paddles - The Best Short Canoe Trips in the South of England" offers easily accessible guidance to 26 suggested trips of between 3km and 18km distance.
[Image courtesy of Rivers Publishing U.K.]
Already drawing acclaim from within the UK canoeing community, this book "has filled a significant gap in the coverage of paddling guidebooks", enclosing the recreational easy-paddling map of the SE within a boundary ranging from Colchester and Cambridge in the east, across to Oxford in the west and down to Southampton.
With a strongly family friendly focus, most of the trips are 'graded' as either "easy" or "very easy", and just 3 are described under a heading of "experience needed", although reference is made to some of the local playspots on route. Clear maps and plenty of photographs support the easy to follow descriptions of put-in and take-out locations, with parking places noted throughout, and useful suggestions provided for either shortening or lengthening trips.
As the title indicates, riverside pubs also make more than an occasional appearance, and for this reason I'm grateful to the author and his co-contributors for not having included the Kennet, as I now need to do some research to remediate the clearly identified hole in this blog.
"Pub Paddles" is available through major on-line and high street booksellers.
ISBN: 978-0-9550614-1-7
Following yesterday's General Election in the UK, all of the constituencies through which the River Kennet flows are now Conservative territory.
Flowing down the valley, the Devizes constituency has a first time MP in the shape of Claire Perry, who has inherited this safe seat from Michael Ancram, and increased her party's share of the vote to over 55%.
Downstream in the neighbouring Newbury constituency, the incumbent MP Richard Benyon has similarly entrenched his position, with a 7.4% increase in vote share giving him 56.4% of the total votes cast.
In Reading West, Labour MP Martin Salter stood down and handed the seat to the Conservative's Alok Sharma, who has hammered the previous party positions into reversal with a 9.6% increase, taking over 43% of the vote.
Long standing Wokingham MP John Redwood continued the trend of Conservative improvement by increasing his share of the vote by 4.6% to take 52.7% of ballot papers cast.
In Reading East 2005 first time MP Rob Wilson substantially improved on his previously slim majority by taking 42.6% of the vote, 6.9% up on his previous share.
What does this all mean for access to and navigation of the River Kennet? Probably no change in the status quo of attempted restriction... so paddling continues as normal.
The annual Crafty Craft charity race along the Kennet and Avon canal took place today, with a wide assortment of home made vessels travelling from Hungerford (or Kintbury for younger participants) to end on the Kennet Navigation in Newbury.
Around 30 groups of adult and junior competitors braved the 'traditional' bank holiday weather, but despite the increasingly grey skies only occasionally parting to bathe the race in sunshine, and a cooling wind driving a few rain squalls later in the day, tired but exhuberant entrants crossed the finish line to cheers from local crowds.
With a "Battle of the Bands" theme to coincide with the local live music competition final being held alongside the wharf in Victoria Park, the idea that this is fundamentally a fun event was clearly demonstrated in the costumes, decoration and smiles on display.
An early junior team are returned to the water by their support crew having clambered around the West Mills swing bridge. Juniors have an additional 7 locks to portage, adults have 10.
Able West Berks CC on the home run after paddling under Newbury Bridge.
Newbury MP Richard Benyon at the finish line, where he repeated his view that improved access to rivers and waterways is best achieved by local agreements.
Junior team #5: the Boatorhead rock crew. If you can't lay your hands on this much polystyrene...
...then a few plastic containers lashed to an old Rotobat did the job nicely for the air guitar girls.
The Boys Brigade make it to the finish despite a stern list to starboard, but anxiously look over their shoulders as they are closely followed in by...
...the Spice Girls!
The Black Eyed Peas Brains. Later inspection of their craft revealed...
...a secret helmsman.
The twin torpedo of adult team #17 reaches the finish. Scary to think that 6 grown men would go out in public wearing such masks. The blue message on the side sadly proclaims "We love Louis Walsh".
The flower-power punks...
...and the peddle-powered lumberjacks.
Congratulations to all the participants, and to Newbury Round Table for their organisation and marshalling of an excellent event!
Edit: The final results are listed here with loads of additional pictures.
