Letter about lock keepers from Peter Quarmby (Area Manager - South East - Thames Region) followed by reply from Freddie Pilditch 

Letter from Peter Quarmby:

 

 

Reply from Freddie Pilditch:

 

RESTINGS 6 FRIARY ROAD WRAYSBURY TW19 5JP

 

 

Peter Quarmby, Esq

Area Manager – South East Thames

The Environment Agency

Swift House

FRIMLEY

Camberley

Surrey GU16 5SQ

 

22nd May 2008

 

Dear Sir

 

PLAN TO DISPOSE OF LOCKKEEPERS' HOUSES

 

Thank you for your letter of the 19th May which arrived earlier today.

 

It does little to allay my concerns for the safety of the public or the proper 24-hr control of the river flow.  Let me give you three examples:

 

Most locks are supposedly closed off to pedestrians, other than boaters passing through the lock.  This closing off is often no more than some sort of chain running between posts and  notices requesting members of the public not to cross.  Out of hours there is nothing to stop anyone from playing around with the consequent risk that implies.

 

How do you plan to prevent vandals from misusing the locks at night – such as leaving the sluices and/or gates open at both ends or opening or closing the sluices on the weirs?

 

You say that you do not intend leaving the lock-keepers “unhoused”..  How and where are you going to re-house them?  Property in the Thames Valley is not cheap and the closer to the river (and thereby the lock-keepers work) the more expensive it is.  So, where is the saving?

 

And finally, should the EA realise the error and want to repurchase any of the properties in question it will not have the funds or be forced to use money allocated for other purposes (such as dredging?).

 

Mr Quarmby, you have been in the job for a fairly short time but must know of the history of the decision to sell some 40 odd dredgers ,the lack of dredging for the past 10 yrs or more and the awful floods of 2003 - despite a flood alleviation scheme.

 

I believe that the EA has now lost its Crown Protection.  I would suggest that you and everyone in the EA (including the chief executive) should be made aware of the risk that they run of a prosecution for wilful negligence as a result of the proposal now under consideration.

  

Yours faithfully

  

Freddie Pilditch

Wraysbury

 

Cc The Right Hon Hilary Benn, MP, Adam Afriyie, MP, Baroness Barbara Young,  John Harman, Colin Raynor,The Daily Telegraph