expilot

At 8.50 am this morning, Friday, 22nd December, the River Thurne above Potter Heigham bridge had reached record levels. The river was overtopping the flood defences at locations it has never before overtopped.

Abd there was me thinking it was just because I had long arms

Thank you Meantime, for the endorsement, but there are very many "locals" much more knowledgeable than me. I've owned a riverside property four hundred yards upriver from THAT BRIDGE for only the past thirty-four years! I'm still an incomer. Thirty years ago, as the then Chairman of the River Thurne Tenants Association (RTTA), I was advocating that the bridge to be pedestrianised - on safety grounds initially. As a bridge pilot I had to cross the bridge many, many times each day of a seven-day-a-week job. I have no wish to exaggerate the danger, but I have witnessed mums with push chairs trying to cross the bridge at the same time as lorries and buses. The bridge width is barely able to cope with both. There has never been a time when the traffic lights have been set up to allow both sets to show red at the same time and for long enough to allow pedestrians to cross without vehicles trying to cross at the same time. A very unreliable memory suggests that, thirty years ago, local businesses were against the idea because such any such proposed pedestrianisation would, they believed, have had an adverse effect on their businesses and local residents were against the idea because of an inevitable increase in traffic along Bridge Road and Station Road. The 7.5 tonne weight limit has never been enforced. Buses - albeit only now nine tonne single deckers - and lorries cross the bridge several times a day. About a decade ago, the RTTA commissioned a Potter Bridge Enhancement Study. Its author came up with the idea, too, of pedestrianising the bridge, but this time as part of a complete regeneration scheme for the area. It envisaged making the bridge a genuine tourist destination, landscaped, lit at night to allow al fresco dining and drinking and with occasional entertainment. For the record, I have received very helpful and positive responses to recent emailed requests for information. The first came from Norfolk County Council Highways' site engineer (Bridges and VRS). The engineer tells me that the initial survey is being reviewed and consents being sought for proposed works. The second from the Broads Authority assuring me that closure to navigation was the responsibility of the BA and that no application had yet been made by any agency for any closing of the bridge to navigation - short-term, long-term or permanent - to navigation. The BA assured me that permanent closure to navigation was highly unlikely. The biggest problem about the latest events at the bridge is that issues get sensationalised - and, with the power and scope of social media and a less than reliable local press, myths, suppositions, comment and speculation quickly assume the status of fact. In my various roles, I have learned to take nothing at face value. I believe nothing until I have seen the evidence. Expilot

Hi Griff TBMC/RDS can manage to continue servicing all the 100 or so bungalows above the bridge with weekly domestic refuse collection and cesspit emptying. Domestic refuse collected from properties below the bridge could be collected weekly by a suitable open 30 foot (max) boat and hand-balled, as now, to the waiting NNDC/Serco bin lorry on Potter Staithe. It is the collection of semi-septic waste from cesspits that is much more troublesome. Louise was designed specifically to pump the black water waste from the cesspits direct to Louise's holding tanks and then transport it to TBMC's effluent discharge point at PH53 from whence it is pumped up to Anglian Water's mains drainage system. Again, a suitable vessel with a couple of IBCs aboard could collect the sewage using the Company's portable stand-by trash pump, but, having collected 2,000 litres of the stuff (the contents of two full cesspits) it isn't easy to see where the effluent could then be discharged. Yes a tanker could collect the effluent, but at the height of the season, TBMC/RDS collects, transports and discharges anything up to 26,000 litres on her two-days-per-week collection days. That's a lot of travelling time for the boat and a very long waiting time for a tanker - plus all of the extra costs involved, all of which are borne by the bungalow owners in receipt of such service. It falls to TBMC's Directors, its managing agent and our out-sourced service provider, RDS, to come up with contingency arrangements. Wish us well!

Oops. For "liability" above read "viability" Expilot

Forum members may appreciate that any closure to navigation at Potter Bridge. temporary, short-term, long-term or permanent will have disastrous consequences for the future liability of the 100 or so Martham and Repps riverside bungalows particularly, as they are non-mains drainage-connected properties wholly dependent on the services of TBMC/RDS and Louise for cesspit emptying. In my capacity as Chairman of Thurne Bungalows Management Company Limited, I have been in communication with English Heritage, Norfolk County Council Highways and the Broads Authority to explain to these organisations the importance of guaranteed navigation under Potter bridge. Highways usefully explained that our perceived problem didn't exist because "a diversion was in place." Seriously? You couldn't make it up! The BA response was more helpful and, because of this, I quote it in full below: "Dear Mr Sanford Thank you for your query received through our website. We are aware of the highways issues with the road surface on Potter Heigham Bridge. At the time this was reported Rangers were asked to check the underside of the centre span of the bridge. They determined no visible defect so there was no need to close the bridge to navigators. Since then the relevant parties have been investigating further into the defects within the road surface. Part of this involved divers checking the bridge abutments and the side spans of the bridge. The navigation was only closed while the divers were actually in the water and vessels were allowed through under the instruction of the dive safety team so my understanding is that the bridge was restricted navigation for that day and not a whole day closure. The maintenance of the bridge is the responsibility of NCC and English Heritage. Neither of these organisations will be able to close the bridge to navigation without the approval of the Navigation Authority which is the Broads Authority. We have not been asked to close the bridge to navigation although that may be necessary for short periods if the repairs require it to be. Should this be required then a Notice to Mariners would give details of the closure periods and advance notice. We have not had any information yet about any temporary short term closures needed. Should there be any discussion about permanent closure to navigation, which I believe is unlikely to happen, then we are aware of the needs of both boaters and bungalow owners which would be taken into account. In this very unlikely event we will involve all interested parties in any discussion about the way forward. There has been no suggestion so far of any closure of navigation through the bridge permanently. I hope this reassures you and gives you what information we have at this time. Regards Andy Ellson Senior Ranger" I am obliged to declare a personal interest in this matter. We own a riverside bungalow above Potter Heigham bridge and I have two day boats and a motor cruiser - "Broadland Swift" - moored at the property, none of which would I want to see "marooned" above the bridge long-term Expilot

TBMC offered the BA a lease that terminated in 2085. It could offer no longer a term because that is when TBMC's Headlease from the Environment Agency ends.

For the record, Thurne Bungalows Management Company, leaseholders of the quiet moorings at Potter, has formally offered to lease the BA both sets of moorings and at a peppercorn rent. However, the quay headings need total replacement, probably in steel piling, and the plots need to be raised to a safer height. This is a hugely expensive exercise. Such major costs could not be entertained by TBMC's shareholding leaseholders. The BA probably thought along similar lines.

Sorry to have to correct you, Regulo, but this Foster 30 is not moored in "adjacent waters" when it is moored at the boat owner's own mooring plot. There is, therefore, I believe, no requirement for either a BA toll to be paid or a boat safety certificate. It would only require a toll to have been paid and a current BSS if it were moored on the plot frontage. As always I stand to be corrected if I am incorrect in my reading of the situation.

The Potter Heigham moorings "lost" are two stretches of 24hour public moorings on the Repps bank half a mile below Potter bridge. Since 1986 these mooring plots have been leased from the Environment Agency by Thurne Bungalows Management Company Limited, of which I am currently a Director. TBMC's Lease expires in 2086. "Lost" because, with now 'normal' high tides on the Thurne and ever-increasing freeboards to cruisers, TBMC's mooring plots represent a health and safety risk that TBMC Ltd cannot afford to take. In the Company's opinion, the only solution to make these moorings safe and fit for purpose is to completely re-pile and re-quayhead the moorings, simultaneously raising the land by at least 30 centimetres (a foot in old money). This engineering work will require thousands of pounds and the money would have to come from the owners of the Potter Heigham, Ludham, Repps and Martham Thurne bungalows. TBMC Ltd's shareholders are the owners of 184 of the Thurne bungalows. As things stand, TBMC's public mooring plots will be left to re-wild. TBMC Ltd had hoped to persuade the Environment Agency to finance such a scheme. The moorings are of no use as moorings to the Environment Agency. TBMC Ltd tried to persuade the Broads Authority to take on a long lease and the future maintenance of the plots. The Broads Authority reported that it could not afford to take on such a financial liability. Negotiations are still on-going, and, with this in mind, TBMC Ltd would appreciate forum members not muddying the waters of what could be delicate negotiations. I am, on the other hand, happy to take constructive private messages on the matter. For the sake of clarity, the BA's own 24hour moorings at Potter are still available for use by both private and hired boats. David W Sanford Director TBMC Ltd

When I was pilot at Potter Bridge over a ten year period in the 1990s, we recorded every piloted passage and, incidentally, every LW and HW measurement. In a busy year we would make 15,000 passages - hire craft and private craft - from the week before Easter to the last week in October. I cannot provide you with this year's figures, but, with a riverside property above the bridge I can safely say that many fewer than 500 cruisers were piloted through the bridge. I have specifically excluded from that number Martham Boatbuilding & Dev Co's boats as the yard has always provided its own staff to pilot their boats through. The truth is that the river levels have risen, and have risen year on year. Flood defences behind all of the Thurne bungalows were never overtopped during the first twenty years of our bungalow ownership. Overtopping is now a regular occurrence. Various sections of the public footpath behind the bungalows are underwater for months at a time. Over a ten year period, post-piloting, I lifted thirty two of our riverside bungalows to clear them of fluvial flooding - all 220 are located on the functioning flood plain of the River Thurne. Whilst I, perhaps selfishly, would not want to see a return to the density of boat traffic in the Upper Thurne of the 90s, there has to be a note of caution. It is the movement of boat traffic that appears to keep channels open. The speed of reed-bed ingress at the river's edge is staggering. We have fishing platforms located on the opposite bank to our bungalow. Despite the reed being dredged and carted away a couple of years ago, it is already several metres back into the river.

I raked out every above waterline plank seam on my motor-cruiser, "Broadland Swift", some twenty five years ago and filled every one of such seams with epoxy resin and filleting blend filler. I was told (air sucking through teeth) by local boatbuilders (who shall remain nameless) that wood had to breathe, had to have room to move and that my precious boat would go off with a bang one day. I'm still waiting for the bang and still waiting to find plank seams opening up. And below the waterline? Well, blow me down, as with all Broadland class boats designed by Christopher Cockerill and built by Ripplecraft of Somerleyton since 1948, in 1962, when Swift was built, the hull bottom was constructed in iroko planks - glued together! And still is! Swift has been craned in and out of the water several times. She has been slipped in and out of the water several times. She has been stored on the hard for way too long during blisteringly hot and windy summers. In all the years I have owned her, the hull has been mistaken for grp construction, for steel and for plywood - and that by experienced boatbuilders. Ten years of working in a boatyard specialising in restoring and maintaining timber boats showed me that carvel boats' planks rot from the seam edges. I had seen the above-waterline wooden planks of Yare and Bure One Designs being epoxy glued at the yard. If it's good enough for a racing boat, I presumed it would be perfectly OK for a lumbering old eight-tonner of a motor-cruiser. My only caveat to all of the above is that glueing up seams with epoxy has to be done bearing in mind several vitally important factors: the planks have to be sound, they have to be dry and the working conditions have to be right - temperature-wise and humidity-wise. Broadland Swift's hull was last painted probably about ten years ago. Any inspection welcome. I have had no reason whatsoever ever to regret epoxy gluing Swift's seams. I enjoy hull painting, but not every year!

I have a sneaking suspicion that Andy G may be referring to "Broadland Swift". I confess, the old girl has spent far too long hidden from view, but, without going to too much detail, I plead extenuating circumstances. For the past three years I have been hoping to convert Broadland Swift to pure electric propulsion (48v AC brushless motor) to join a fleet of electrically powered boats I also own - a Powles day boat, a Mark 1 Freeman and a mystery boat just acquired ("Tender to Silver Leaf") probably built in Scotland - possibly Glasgow. Unfortunately, I am gradually coming round to the idea that the conversion is impractical for the way I wish to use the boat. I'm slowly, and very, very reluctantly, coming round to the idea of re-engining her to diesel. Going hybrid was an option at one point, but now seems to me to be the worst of all worlds. I am very much hoping that "Swift" will be out and about next year, but, I have to report that she may now be confined to the "jewel in the crown" waters above THAT bridge. Since I started restoring her, the River Thurne has risen to the extent that I can no longer guarantee to get Swift through Potter bridge. Fortunately, being stored in our wet shed, her brightwork and hull paint look almost as fresh as the day I completed them.

For ten years as a Hoseasons and Blakes bridge pilot at Potter Bridge, I can inform you that we used the tide tables published by the BA to predict high and low water times. They were very rarely out by more than a few minutes. We never used the published predicted heights at all. Instead, we monitored the river levels on a daily basis and checked with the weather forecasts for changes of wind direction and air pressure. Predicting river levels at Potter bridge is a black art. We got caught out as often as the weather forecasters!

Reference Mouldy's point - one of the advantages of having a pilot service available (and using it) is that it isn't in the interests of the pilots to put a vessel up through the bridge without genuinely believing they can get it back through - provided the owners/hirers have listened to their advice. The extra hassle is simply not worth it. In my day, every hirer and privateer was given a time slot and an absolute deadline by which they had to be back at the bridge, and ready to be piloted through - tide permitting. Judging the next day's tide was (still is) a black art. Did we get it wrong sometimes? Yes, of course we did. Often the highlight for some people's holidays was when they were joined on their boat by what would have seemed to them to be hundreds of complete strangers "volunteered" from their drinks in the Bridge Inn. The tide hadn't gone as low as we were expecting and we had to weigh boats down to get them back through. We have, in the past, been blessed with cooperative yards like Richardsons who often volunteered their yard staff as makeweights. The hardest part of the job always was having to disappoint people.