DRAFT VERSION - FOR INTERNAL REVIEW

Friends of Regent’s Canal - Meeting Report

1. Present

2. Apologies

Tony Price

Zannthie Bennett

Heidi Ober

Carolyn Clark

Caroline Neller

Colin Parlett (SPCC)

Leo Chapman

Jo Murray

Alice Williams

Charles Collett

Cllr Midnight Ross

Cllr Jasmine Martins

3. Slide show

The meeting was structured around a slide show, which is available via this link:

friendsofregentscanal.org/events/20234/2024-11-27/slideshow/slideshow-2024-11-27.html

4. Announcements

4.1 Cooking oil dumped in canal

In February 2024, a deliberate pollution incident occurred and the clean-up costs were imposed on the CRT. See the BBC and the Evening Standard reports.

4.2 Drowning tragedy in City Road Basin

In February 2024, a five-year old girl drowned in the City Road Basin after disappearing from her canalside home. As a result, some temporary fencing has been erected on the edge of the basin. The inquest exposed a lot of confusion about who owns which parts of the towpath. See BBC report and letter in the Islington Tribune.

4.3 Reopening of Regent's Canal Information Centre

This is covered in 6.3 below

4.4 Another successful Angel Canal Festival

This is covered in 6.6 below

4.5 Protests against Visitor Mooring charges

There have been press reports about new mooring charges that have resulted in underutilisation of those moorings. See the Islington Gazette and the Islington Tribune

4.6 Lower Regent's Coalition break-in

The Lower Regent's Coalition suffered a burglary and all their equipment was stolen or damaged. They are now seeking donations in order to resume their litter picking activities in the new year. See their JustGiving page.

4.7 Robberies in Victoria Park area

There have been several robberies from boats along the canal in recent weeks. The culprits are waterborne and the boating community are on high alert, working with the police to catch them.

4.8 Green plaque for Beryl Windsor at City Road Basin

Islington Council has agreed to provide a green plaque for Beryl Windsor, who organised the Angel Canal Festival for 20 years. This will go alongside Crystal Hale's plaque near City Road Lock.

4.9 Holborn Studios - the fight goes on

At a public inquiry in August the planning inspector overturned Hackney Council's decision to save Holborn Studios from demolition. The Holborn Studios legal team are now preparing a challenge to this decision.

4.10 New orchard in Graham Street Park

This is covered in 6.1 below.

4.11 Website failures

Ian Shacklock reported that there have been technical problems with our website on a couple of occasions. The website remained available for visitors, but we were prevented from making any updates for several hours. This means we have an unreliable platform and in future we need to resist making last minute changes to important webpages. Ian appealed for assistance from anyone with web administration experience.

4.12 Complaints about light and noise pollution

We have received complaints from a nearby resident about social events at Eagle Wharf Marina. However, Islington and Hackney Councils do not believe any rules are being breached and the case has been closed.

4.13 In Memoriam

Vince McCartney, founder of Holborn Studios, passed away in January. See tribute on our website.

Malika Hibu, aged 5, drowned tragically in City Road Basin in February. See our news page for BBC report and articles in the local press.

Robin King, a dedicated volunteer, passed away in December 2023. See obituary in the Islington Tribune.

Nicky Gavron, former chair of planning at the GLA who took an interest in our work, passed away in August. See obituary in the Guardian.

Nick Perry, former chair of the Hackney Society, died suddenly in October, aged 52. See tribute in stokenewingtonhistory.com

5. Update on planning applications

See the meeting slides for illustrations of these proposals.

5.1 St Pancras Hospital

There are major plans to intensify the St Pancras Hospital site and we have been assisting the residents of Camley Street with their campaign against a 21-storey tower block. This was a late addition to the scheme that was smuggled in once the public had given the rest of the scheme the thumbs-up. See our webpage for more information.

5.2 Barnsbury Estate

Plans for redeveloping the Barnsbury Estate are being revived. The developers are hoping to add another seven stories to the canalside tower blocks that we objected to a couple of years ago. They have alienated council officials by revealing their plans to the public before discussing them properly with the council. See our webpage for more information.

The latest revisions will be on show at drop-in events on 10th and 14th December

5.3 Coal Drops Pavilion

Camden Council received a planning application for a shopping pavilion right in the middle of a public square. The public backlash was so severe that this application was withdrawn. See our webpage for more information.

5.4 Floating Lido in City Road Basin

For the past five years there have been behind-the-scenes proposals for a floating lido in City Road Basin. Nobody in our network was aware of this until a stall appeared at the Angel Canal Festival in September. See article in the Islington Tribune

Eric Sorensen explained to the meeting that ... (missing text to be added here)

5.5 Fencing at Peabody Estate

Following a drowning tragedy outside Crest Buildings in City Road Basin, Peabody Housing is under pressure to erect permanent fencing between their housing estate and the basin. If this fencing is installed too close to the basin then it will create a hazard for waterway users and it could scupper any hope of opening up the public walkway along the eastern edge of the basin.

5.6 Bow Wharf

The CRT is seeking public approval for building a residential block in front of a historic warehouse at Bow Wharf. Carolyn Clark (Regent's Canal Heritage) has advised that this will have a huge impact on heritage as it will hide and overwhelm historical canal buildings.

6. Update on community projects

See the meeting slides for illustrations.

6.1 Orchard in Graham Street Park

The Friends of Graham Street Park (FROGS) have planted a small orchard in the corner of the pocket park next to the Islington Boat Club. See this article by Kirstie Wielandt, one of the trustees of FROGS.

6.2 Nature Reserves at risk

The Wildlife Gardeners of Haggerston have seen some of their work destroyed by a careless landlord and they have been asked to stop maintaining a nature reserve that won a Green Flag award. See the Hackney Gazette

Another well maitained nature reserve at Belmont Wharf remains in a precarious position because Tower Hamlets Council still wants to flatten this site and convert it to housing. This ongoing story was covered in TimeOut three years ago and the site is still at risk.

6.3 Regent's Canal Information Centre

The canal information centre reopened quietly in February. There was no opening ceremony or press release from either Black Sheep Coffee or the CRT and a lot of our hard work has been ruined by an unauthorised change to the colour pallet on the large canal map. Ian Shacklock reported this to the council enforcement officers but they chose not to take any further action. Marcus Ellenby complained that there is no information inside the building to explain that it is actually a visitor centre. Ian replied that we had sketched out a welcome panel by the doorway but this was replaced by a video screen. See our online guide for a description of this amenity.

6.4 Archive of planning applications

Last year Ian Shacklock began a project to capture and display every known planning application in the five boroughs that enclose the canal. The Islington Society published an article about this in February 2024 (see here) but the response was disappointing and the project was put on hold. However, this work might be of interest to Hackney Council as one of their planning officers (Adam Dyer) was at this meeting.

6.5 Archive of canal news

Our website was created in 2011 and it has always included a collection of links to news items. Over the years many of these links have expired and we needed to discard them. In September we completed a project to recover most of the news stories by scanning printed cuttings and there are now over 650 items on our news page.

6.6 Angel Canal Festival

On Sunday 1st September we took part in this annual canal festival. For the second year running this was organised by Sasha Keir and her team of volunteers and it has become well established again.

6.7 Community Boat Clubs

When the Islington Boat Club was closed abruptly in 2022 it received a lot of attention at our meetings and in the locval press. It became apparent that many people were unaware of all the other community boat clubs that offer services to schools and disadvantaged groups. To raise awareness of them the presentation included two slides that illustrated the following clubs:

The Pirate Castle, based in Camden Town.
Tarporley, based at Kings Place.
Angel Boat, based at City Road Lock.
Islington Boat Club, based in City Road Basin.
Laburnum Boat Club, based in Haggerston.

7. City Road Basin

7.1 The final part of the meeting was a presentation on the City Road Basin to mark 20 years since the masterplan was first adopted. The purpose of the presentation was to review the final product against the promises and to prompt some ideas to address the shortcomings.

7.2 Two days prior to the meeting the chair had circulated a pre-meeting report covering this topic.

7.3 The presentation included photographs of each end of the basin, a site plan, elevation drawings of the buildings on the two main sides of the basin and some extracts from the masterplan brochure. The brochure had included visualisations of a vibrant plaza surrounded by cafes and bars, along with pedestrian walkways around the basin. In contrast, the recent photographs illustrate a deserted grey space surrounded by gates with heavy padlocks.

7.4 The final slide included the following list of bullet points with suggestions for corrective actions.

Monitor the gate locking schedule at the basin.
Campaign to unlock all waterside gates during daylight hours.
Arrange signage and maps to promote the basin walkways.
Approach the CRT about an information point at the plaza.
Discuss policies and priorities with Islington Council.
Review conditions of planning application P2014/2131.
Review daylight and sunlight reports for the tower blocks.
Find out why no cafés or bars ever opened at the basin head.
Find out what measures the police are taking to tackle ASB.
Organise more public events at the plaza.
Open a café at the plaza.

7.5 There was a short discussion on some of these points, followed by some post-meeting discussions, but no conclusionms were reached in the time available. These actions will need to be considered at a future meeting or via follow-up e-mail discussions.