SC(3) - AIW15

Sustainability Committee

Inquiry into access to inland water in Wales

I work as a canoeing instructor and canoe for leisure. The position regarding legal rights is poor and leads to misunderstanding between all waterway users and landowners. It often seems to be a personal interpretation depending on time of day and mood. Friction most often occurs between anglers and canoeists as the most frequent users of the waterways. This appears to create a polarised anglers / canoeists conflict but that oversimplifies the arguement and does not explain why the legal rights are so poorly understood.

The very limited access to water in Wales has created "Honeypot" sites which only excacerbates conflict due to the sheer volume of users on the water. Voluntary agreements do not work as is evidenced by the scarcity of them compared to kilometres of usable water. The obvious models to adopt are the Scandanavian one of "all mans right" or the access rights as enjoyed in Scotland. I can go home and put my boat on pretty much any piece of water I want to, I can fish from my boat, go for a swim and in fact do more or less whatever I wish so long as I harm nothing and offend no one.

Obviously this needs everyone to accept resposibility for their actions and there will always be some people who are unable to do this but anything other than adoption of the a/m options is a failure to grasp the nettle and this access problem will resurface time and again wasting time, money and resources.

yours

Angus Riddell