Willow Wren Wharf: A bridge too far, that did not happen

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 14th Aug 2006

A bridge over troubled water at Willow Wren Wharf - has tranquility now been restored ?

We met the houseboat people at a meeting attended by local Liberal Democrats Pat Braby and Harjinder Singh. We had no inkling then that we would walk together on a long road, ending up with a defeat at the Bristol Planning Inspectorate.

North of the Hayes Road, near the local Tesco and Toys 'r Us, is a houseboat mooring in the Grand Union Canal called Willow Wren Wharf. On the other side of the canal is an industrial estate owned by the Co-op. The Co-op wanted to improve access to the estate by building a bridge across the canal and the Willow Wren Wharf. This would have connected the estate directly with the Hayes Road.

The Co-op applied for planning permission, and due to concerted efforts by the houseboat residents and the local Liberal Democrats the application was rejected. The Co-op applied again, with only a few changes made, and again the application was rejected.

Finally the Co-op seemed to have won when they appealed to the planning inspectorate in Bristol.

Satnam Kaur Khalsa, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesperson for Feltham & Heston, said at the time:

"In the planning meetings of our area committee we debate about people being able to look into their neighbours' gardens from the windows of their planned extensions. But building a bridge across people's houseboats seems to be acceptable. And they keep saying that the environment will not suffer either !"

Recently we met one of the houseboat people, and he told us that the developer had now decided not to build the bridge after all.

So this was a campaign where we were successful to a point. Liberal Democrat campaigners were able to help the residents due to the fact that we knew who to contact and how. We lost on appeal, as 'big money' knows how to get round the law better than a local borough or a group of activists.

We think that part of the reason why the developer decided not to build his bridge was that under pressure from the activists additional conditions were included in the planning permission, which made the bridge less viable.

People Power after all !