Cropredy Marinas Approved

Cherwell District Council has approved two marina schemes for the little picturesque village of Cropredy. This has been reported as having no harmful impact on the village. With no shops on site getting the supplies to the boats for their cruises could bring in 300 visiting Ocado refridgerated vans!

And what about the impact on the canal!

The marinas, one with 49 berths and one with 249 berths, bring 300 additional boats to the South Oxford Canal. Last summer saw water restrictions on the top level with locks at Claydon Flight and Marston Doles only open for 4 hours per day. Just filling these marinas will take the usable reserve of Clattercote reservoir! That's about 75 million litres which will drop the level in the reservoir by approximatey a metre. Surely CaRT will not want to allow too much water out at once to preserve the specimen fish in the prime angling water. Clattercote reservoir contains approximately 175 million litres at an average depth off 2.5m.

300 boats, each out once a month on a little cruise there and back, would deplete the canal by approximately 57,000,000 litres of water per month. Just do the maths. 1 lock full is 19000 litres at 2metre drop. There and back would take 2 lock fulls per boat (600).

Marina folk are not known for waiting for another boat to come the other way so as to share the water at a lock. Once out of the marina they are going somewhere and back again, usually on a schedule. From Cropredy, my guess would be Oxford and back in a week. (3 days there, a day in Oxford, 3 days back) And they won't want to be held up by slowing down for the poor folk who have linear towpath moorings. The pressure will be on for CaRT to remove these obstructions and force the likes of me into the marinas for twice the cost to pay for facilities we do not want to use.

Impact on the village may not be a consideration. Has anybody thought about the impact on the canal?