Canal arch disappears

Published: 10 September, 2010

• AT the Angel Canal Festival at the weekend cheers were raised when we found that overnight the arch over the access to the Regent’s Canal at Danbury Street had mysteriously and suddenly disappeared.

The arch was considered unsightly and totally out of place in the conservation area.

The tangled-metal arch was added at the top of the ramp and steps to the canal, rebuilt by British Waterways at great cost (getting on for £250,000 of public funds) to reduce conflict between pedestrians and cyclists.

The ramp has not achieved its objective.

A family with a baby in a buggy and a little tot do not have a safe path separated from cyclists.

Islington planners have told British Waterways that it must apply for planning consent for the arch, and judging from the reaction of the council and residents it does not have much chance of succeeding in getting planning consent.

The arch was designed with help from pupils of a local primary school, and I hope another site is found to display it so the children can admire their handiwork.

In the meantime an entrance needs to be designed that is appropriate for the historic canal and the conservation area.

The ramp-and-steps project has been a fiasco.

British Waterways should have consulted the community and planners instead of coming up with a project that no one had seen.

British Waterways did not apply for planning permission for the ramp and steps as it claimed (incorrectly) it was allowed to carry out the work as “permitted development”.

Its permitted development powers are only in connection with navigational issues on the canal. 

The council was seriously at fault in agreeing that British Waterways could go ahead without planning consent.

A planning application would have required a consultation with residents and canal users, and a very much improved access ramp and steps project would have been the result.

DEL BRENNER
Regent’s Network and a member of the London Waterways Commission