The outrage arose when inhabitants of flats in Albion Mill were hit with a staggering £10,000 bill to install new privacy barriers after only a couple of complaints about boat owners ‘trespassing’.
Narrowboat dwellers at Dinglis Marina had been leaving their shopping at metal railings to be handed over by the residents so as to help them skip a 20-minute walk. However, apartment management deemed this practice a trespassing offence, pushing for an expensive fencing solution to bar marina visitors from taking shortcuts through the car park.
Consequently, the once idyllic waterfront has been transformed into what locals describe as a ‘building site’, due to the installation of two-metre high railings.
Complaints have mounted against FirstPort, the company overseeing the apartments, for uprooting the community’s cherished plant-filled fence, and instead ruining the view and affecting community spirit.
The plant-lined fence before it was removed (Image: Tony Wass / SWNS)
Among the disheartened is resident Tony Wass, aged 67, who invested more than £1,000 personalising his side of the fence. He recounts his dismay upon returning from a six-month trip to Australia over Christmas, only to discover that contractors had dismantled everything during his absence.
“It was put up after we went away for six months to Australia over Christmas,” he said.
“FirstPort now say they own the wall. At some point they ripped the fence out and put this very badly fence up.
“Albion Mill and our residence is not only ugly beyond belief but is also actually now compromising our security” complained Tony, who forks out nearly £9,000 annually for his mooring spot at Diglis Docks.
He described the precarious situation with the barrier meant to protect them: “It’s not safe as it’s held together with two cable ties. You can cut them in two seconds and get in without issues.
“Now we wait I suppose and see what happens next. We have every intention of putting everything back. There hasn’t been any compromise from them.
Locals are complaining that the fence has made the area uglier (Image: Emma Trimble / SWNS)
“We’ve got everyone telling me how awful the fence looks. It looked nice before.
“It’s tarnished our whole view here. We have lovely friends in the community, but it just leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
“We get charged by Aquavista £6,000, on top of that we have to pay the Canal and River Trust over £1,200 for our license.”
Addressing potential additional costs, he added, “Then there’s a risk of council tax which would add another £1,500 if we had to pay it, taking it onto £9,000.
“Once we started handing things over our part of the fence, that’s when the situation started.”
Tony, a professional sound engineer living on the boat with his husband Stuart, now faces challenges due to the new fence: “We have to walk our shopping from the car now which is at least 1km away, and I’m 68 next month.”
Stuart passing shopping to husband Tony over the fence (Image: Emma Trimble / SWNS)
Meanwhile, tenants at a local apartment complex have been left in utter dismay over the inconvenience caused by new barriers.
Discussing their predicament, one local revealed: “We could pull up by the side of the road illegally near the apartments but we don’t want to risk parking tickets.
“There’s two ways to go, one is the circular path but that’s around a mile. The only other option is to go over the top lock gate but it is dangerous.”
Highlighting potential hazards, they added, “You could fall, slip, there’s also huge cast iron hinges that I’ve tripped over numerous times in the dock.
“You’d have to walk a mile with your shopping from the car. It’s nonsense. We’ll have to try and get the shopping over by other means, we’ll try and use a pole or something. The whole situation is ridiculous.”
Jon Bodenham is livid over the fence being installed (Image: Emma Trimble / SWNS)
When plans for the fence were announced, locals were livid.
Jon Bodenham, 50, who lives in Albion Mill, said: “It is a significant cost, around £9,000 to £10,000, which is happening without any consultation with residents.
“I am just absolutely livid that a few complaints can actually enact something like this without consulting a wider body of residents.
“Why? Because once or twice a week someone helps someone else by handing a bag of shopping or two across a fence.
“The boat owners are our friends and neighbours, but this is not very neighbourly.”
Dave Price, 56, owner of Cafe Afloat and Pizza Afloat. (Image: Emma Trimble / SWNS)
Boat owner Dave Price, 56, said: “It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s all stemming from two people passing bags of shopping over twice a week.
“If I order some groceries or a Just Eat delivery they hand it over the fence.
“They’re probably two or three people who have moaned about it from 300-400 residents.
“There’s one woman who complained and she was shouting obscenities at us, she was calling us ‘water gypsies’.”
Fellow boater Joe Prentice, 69, has lived on his boat since 2007.
He said: “It’s just one of those things that’s come to a head now.
“The actual development has been trying to get us off the mooring since 2007.
“They tried to claim the moorings as there, but they actually belong to British waterways.
“There actually used to be a gate on the moorings that the old factory manager used to let us use. It was a sort of community then as well.
“I do it, I hand stuff over, drop my shopping bags over and drop my stuff.
“If they used the car park in the marina it would take me 15 to 20 minutes to walk from the car park to the moorings.”
Joe Prentice, 69, has moored his boat there since 2007 (Image: Emma Trimble / SWNS)
The issue appears to have divided the community, as one anonymous tenant remarked on the measures taken which they deem excessive: “It’s been a lot of fuss over nothing really, all to stop people passing over some shopping bags.
“The fences there all looked really pretty and everybody looked out for each other – now we have this horrible fence that make it look like a prison.
“They have already been up for a couple of months and who knows for how much longer. They are shoddily put up and a security issue too.”
This sense of unease was echoed by another Albion Mill resident who felt the response was disproportionate to the issue at hand: “People are feeling a little bit more vulnerable and exposed and all over a couple of complaints about something so trivial.
“Because two people didn’t like others being neighbourly, we’ve had our apartment complex turned into a building site. It’s barmy.”
Property management firm Firstport has yet to respond to the situation.