High Court moorings challenge

Published: Thursday, 15 July 2010

A HIGH COURT challenge has been launched against the installation of visitor moorings on the Brent by a Brentford Councillor.

Nigel Moore and others argued that the installation of visitor moorings on the Brent where it leaves the Thames at the bottom of the Grand Union Canal would jeopardise plans to promote use of the waterways for transport of freight and waste.

They want to persuade judge Mr Justice Wyn Williams to quash a planning inspector's decision to grant planning permission for the visitor moorings  claiming that the inspector failed to impose sufficient safeguards to prevent encroachment into navigational channels in what is a key junction between the Thames and the West London canal network.

Freight

He argued that government policies promote the increased use of Britain's waterways for transporting freight and waste, and that the development inhibits promotion of waterborne freight along the navigation.

The inspector had concluded that it currently sees very little such traffic, and that there are no firm plans for that to increase.

Nigel Moore hopes the judge will order the secretary of state Eric Pickles, to have the matter reconsidered.