SC(3) - AIW119

Sustainability Committee

Inquiry into access to inland water in Wales

Sustainability Committee inquiry into access to Inland Waterways

I was delighted to see that Sustainability Committee is examining this issue. Below are my comments on the questions being considered by the committee.

Best Regards
Andy Shan

Questions for the access to inland waterways inquiry

1 What is your interest in the issue of access to inland waterways

I am a keen kayaker and kayak mainly in Wales on white water rivers such as the Wye, Usk, Dee, Tywi, Irfon, Tryweryn and Nedd Fechan. My son and I (now 16) have kayaked for the last three years.
I am also a landowner with 50 acres about a kilometre of streams which feed the Usk catchment. We manage this land in an environmental way under Tir Gofal.

2 Are you a member of an organisation related to your use of water?

Wyedean Canoe Club
Welsh Canoeing Association
As a family we also belong to the NFU and CLA.

3 Which stretch/es of water do you own/use/manage?

We own about a kilometre of streams north of Raglan which feed indirectly into the Usk, this is not a fishing or navigable section, but you will understand that the management of the 100s of square miles of catchment is as important to water quality as management of the main river channels. The committee such consider the huge amount of work done by the EA under European initiatives to understand and manage the complete river catchment.
I paddle once or twice a week throughout the year on rivers such as the Wye, Usk, Dee, Tywi, Irfon, Tryweryn and Nedd Fechan

Legal rights

4. Are you happy that your legal rights are clear and well defined?

No. The issue of ownership and right of access to the river is hopelessly confused. This vacuum has allowed some landowners and other interested parties to assert that they have an absolute and exclusive rights to control, or more usually, deny access.

5. Can you briefly outline your understanding of your legal rights over the stretch of water/s that you own/use/manage

The streams that I own are not navigable.  In legal terms, I cannot extract, discharge or interfere with their passage without licence.

For the rivers that I paddle, I believe that I have a legal right to pass along any stretch of river. Landowners own the bank and possibly the bed of the river. The issue is that in many places I have to trespass across land to access the river. Here are two examples from the last the last few weeks (in the fishing season):

27 July 2009 River Tywi - Burial Chamber to Dolau Hiron bridge 14km. There is no access agreement on this stretch. In the summer it can only be paddled when there is sufficient water which there was that day. I entered the water 10 metres from the road across an unfenced piece of mountain moorland. I left the water below a bridge onto an area used by Carmarthen angling club and onto the road (about 10 metres). On this run I encountered no one on the river, fishing or otherwise.

17 July 2009 Upper Wye Llangurug to Rhayader 16km. There is no access agreement on this stretch. This run was after very heavy rain and the river was bank full. We entered the water from a bridge on the outskirts of Llangurig by climbing over a fence (about 5m). We left the water below town falls in Rhayader directly into a public park. On this run I encountered no one on the river, fishing or otherwise.
That is about 25 metres of trespass for 30km of paddling where I saw no-one.

6. Would you like to see any changes to your legal rights?

Yes. It would be almost impossible for someone to become a decent whitewater in Wales if they did not in some way risk breaking the law or ignore access agreements. This is in a country which has some of the finest whitewater rivers outside the major mountain areas of Europe.
As a father learning to paddle with his son, there was a point where I had to decide to ignore the law/ access agreements and paddle responsibly under my own discretion. This is not a step I took lightly.
I have never been challenged and have never come into conflict with anglers who are in the maon part friendly towards us.

7. If yes, what changes would you like to see?

A right of responsible access to rivers.

8. Are you aware of any legislation that exists in other countries that could be used in Wales?

Yes. And so are you: Och aye the Noo.

Voluntary agreements

9. Do you have any experience of voluntary agreements for access to the stretch of water/s you own/use/manage?

I regularly use the Usk, mostly between Talybont and Crickhowell which has a voluntary agreement. 

10. If yes, please briefly outline the agreements that exist and your experience of how they operate.

The Usk agreement allows access any time between the 18th October and 2nd March. In the summer there is a 'spate’ clause which allows paddling when the level exceeds a marker on the gauge at Brecon. I have chosen to disregard this agreement many times and will paddle this section when I think the level is appropriately high based on my experience of the river. My reasons are as follows:
The agreement assumes an absolute legal right for the landowner to exclude access. No such legal certainty exists.
The spate line was raised by about 10 inches in March 2008 without consultation when the Brecon gauge was replaced. I have snapshots of the web page to support this.
So far this year, in a wet summer, the spate line has been crossed about four times for no more than about 6 hours of daylight at a time. This has given, at most, 24 hours in approximately 1800 hours of daylight or 1.3%. This is so negligible that the agreement effectively excludes summer paddling unless you live on the doorstep and don’t work.
There are signs below the Gliffaes hotel which order canoeists out of the water on 2 days of the week when the estate is shooting. This could not be done on a public footpath.
The agreement does not restrict paddling during the spawning season. This is environmentally irresponsible. It should dictate a minimum level at this sensitive time.
The WCA has withdrawn from all access agreements.

What this adds up to is an agreement where no concessions are made by landowners, anglers, or in this case shooters and other users are excluded.

11. Would you like to see any changes to the voluntary agreements?

Yes

12. If yes, what changes would you like to see?

Voluntary agreements on the river are not required. What is required is:
-a recognised code of conduct for responsible access. This can be provided by WCA/BCU.
-arrangements for access onto and off the river. These access and egress points are long established by caneoists, but may need to be formalised (eg as public or permissive footpaths)
- infomation from the Environment Agency on river levels. Currently the EA does not provide real time, or near real time river level information on-line to the public (apart from angling sites!). This information is vital to allowing canoeists and kayakers to behave responsibly and only paddle when it is appropriate.
- information from the Environment Agency on sensitive areas eg spawning grounds, to be avoided at certain times of the year or at certain levels. Clearly there are some areas that the cannot publicise, eg freshwater pearl mussel beds.

Please can you briefly outline what you think are the key issues for recreational access to inland water in Wales and how you would like to see them addressed.

1 Wales has some of the best and most beautiful whitewater in Europe outside the major mountain ranges. It is not possible for anyone to become a serious whitewater paddler, touring canoeist or a river swimmer in this country without being accused of breaking a law or contravening an access agreement.

2 The current access situation has been over-influenced by the angling lobby. Supported by landowners, who have a vested interest in the cash that exclusive angling generates, they have excluded the general public from the rivers which are our heritage. Managing for fish and for fishing revenue is not the same as managing the whole river environment and catchment for bio-diversity whilst balancing the needs of all users.
The Environment Agency itself may not have been even handed in this debate. As an example, the EA does not provide river level information to canoeists and kayakers that would help them act responsibly. This information is given to anglers.

3 Public, responsible access to rivers has been shown to work in Scotland and most other progressive countries. A working model is available and easily adoptable. The question is not "should we?”, it is "why haven’t we?”