Thorpe St Andrew River Green

[Wussername]

Thorpe River Green continues to attract controversy and in this respect issues seem to have developed, escalating, towards a far reaching conclusion.

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/23755298.thorpe-st-andrew-council-takes-action-river-green-mooring/

However, some will agree, some will differ, some could not care less.

I hope that the final conclusion will be to the benefit of the residents on the island and those on the other side. It will need compromise, but that requires a degree of understanding.

[grendel]

only the edp would caption a picture "Roger Wood has been in a long-running dispute with Roger Wood over issues at Thorpe Island"

[Vaughan]

10 hours ago, Wussername said:

It will need compromise, but that requires a degree of understanding.

And one of the first things to understand is that Norwich City Council's claim to own the river bed through Thorpe Green is spurious, to say the least.

[Meantime]

I think the history of Thorpe Green has been done to death, however I will add a recent experience. Sunday August Bank Holiday weekend and decided to moor in Thorpe for the evening. We left Norwich around 4pm and cruised down river and slipped under the railway bridge and cruised along to the Green. There was every kind of small boat you can imagine, tenders from the other side, canoes, ribs and a few canoes from the pub and paddle company, but there was one spot up near where the day boats hire from, so we moored there.

We were the only full size Broads boat moored along there and in all honesty we got the last spot at that time. After a while it thinned out a bit and we started to notice that the day boats were returning and mooring up behind us, then the operator would jump on board and the boat would disappear to somewhere in front of us.

I didn't really give it much thought but it did feel slightly like we were in the way, yet looking out the side window we were right by the sign that said free 24hr mooring, so no problem.

We all had showers and then left for a pint in The Rushcutters before dinner in the very excellent Merchants of Spice. As we left all the dayboats were double moored in front of us with two of the boats moored on The Rushcutters mooring. It felt like we had moored on the last bit of the day boat operation mooring, which probably explained the dropping off behind us and then moving the boats around us. 

Nothing had been said to us and if asked once the space behind had become available, we could have moved back. As far as I could tell we were on the free 24hr mooring. However when we arrived it was the only space available anyway.

There used to be signs along the quay heading encouraging the tenders from the other side to moor in certain sections. This has been totally ignored for some considerable time now and was very evident on Sunday afternoon.

The only other mooring space would have been at The Rushcutters, but as we were only having one and eating elsewhere I would have been loathe to use their mooring.

[Vaughan]

On 02/09/2023 at 12:47, Meantime said:

I think the history of Thorpe Green has been done to death,

Far from being done to death, it seems. 

I am amused to read an article on today's EDP website that repairs to the leakage of sewage into the river in Thorpe will now be delayed by legal complications.

Apparently, the council have sent down divers (back in February) who found that the pipe was not delivering all of the sewage into the council drains on the Green.  Which I guess is technobabble for saying it had a hole in it!  Said hole being possibly - or probably - caused by the last lot of river dredging.

The Council are now saying that they can put the work in place to do repairs but although they expect Roger Wood to pay for it, he is refusing.  And that legal proceedings may take a year or two.

Well now, there's a surprise!  After all the time they have known Roger, do they now expect him to lie down and meekly submit to their demands, after the persecution he has suffered at their hands over many years?  It seems to me that the Council are demonstrating the same innate hatred that they have always had for anything that happens on Hart's Island in Thorpe.  Which has not everything to do with Roger Wood.  You should have heard what my father always had to say about them!  I think I am safe in saying that their generally obstructive attitude towards "commercial activity" formed a large part of Richardsons' decision to close down the boatyard and sell the property.

But now we have a new ingredient being "stirred" into the smelly river, since Norwich City Council were coerced by the BA planning dept into claiming that they own all of the river bed going through Thorpe.  Although the City boundary has always ended at Harvey Lane and Thorpe has always fought to be in the "county" and not in the city.  The council appear to be using this argument over other disputes concerning the use of the Green and the public staithe, which they have conveniently closed off to the public, in order to persecute Roger and his business clients, who are those on the moorings.  So in that case Roger certainly doesn't own the river bed, as the NCC wish to claim it is an ancient public highway from Yarmouth to Norwich.  Which it never was, but that's another subject.

If the drains running from your house develop a leak in the road outside, where they meet the public sewers, do you have to pay personally for repairs?  Of course not.  And you are only responsible for a leak in the water pipes under the road if it occurs on your property, on your side of the meter.

So if the NCC now own the river bed through Thorpe, let them attend to the proper maintenance of their drains.

 

[Wussername]

 So in that case Roger certainly doesn't own the river bed, as the NCC wish to claim it is an ancient public highway from Yarmouth to Norwich.  Which it never was, but that's another subject.

I am fairly  sure that Roger Green does not own the river bed. However the river Yare through Thorpe St. Andrew at the River Green, was the original river to Norwich. The railway and its two bridges forced the New Cut as it was known to be made to ensure the passage of craft to the port of Norwich. So, in this respect NCC may be correct. Or am I having a Saga moment.

Andrew

[Vaughan]

10 minutes ago, Wussername said:

However the river Yare through Thorpe St. Andrew at the River Green, was the original river to Norwich. The railway and its two bridges forced the New Cut as it was known to be made to ensure the passage of craft to the port of Norwich. So, in this respect NCC may be correct.

Ah, but . . . . . 

It was the river to Norwich, yes.  Ever since Timbo's Viking relations denied the existence of the Great Estuary!    

But the original efforts to "Make Norwich a Port" by Samuel Morton Peto in 1844, concerned a new navigation through the port of Lowestoft.  Hence the building of the New Cut at Haddiscoe and the "Back Reach" behind the Island at Thorpe.  This navigation was built because the Burghers of Gt Yarmouth wanted to charge too much toll money for vessels to pass up the Yare through Gt Yarmouth.

I have read differing versions of history, which say that the Back Reach may have been dug (for the navigation) a few years before the railway was built, or that the building of the railway created the need for the Back Reach to be dug out. 

One way or another, the Navigation was established through the Back Reach in Thorpe a long time before Norwich finally negotiated a deal with Gt Yarmouth to allow navigation up the whole of the river Yare, which thus superceded the original navigation down the Waveney from Lowestoft.  An agreement was reached whereby the River up to Hardley Cross was maintained by Yarmouth and from there on upstream, by Norwich.  A ceremony used to be held every year at Hardley Cross, attended by Bishops, Lord Mayors, asorted dignitory's and surviving relatives of King Canute.

The point here is that the river round the bend through Thorpe Green ceased to be the Navigation to Norwich a long time before Norwich took on responsibility for the maintenance of the navigation from there to Yarmouth.  So if they "own" anything, it is the Back Reach behind the railway and not the old river through Thorpe Green.

There is also the question of when the Yare ceased to be a Maritime Navigation (which made Norwich a sea port).  Even after the creation of the BA it was several years before they actually took over the responsibility for the Yare from the port of Gt Yarmouth.

So if Norwich CC now wish to claim ownership of the river bottom all the way to Hardley Cross, perhaps they would like to pay to maintain it?  But that still doesn't give them any claim to the river through Thorpe Green. 

Not as history would have it.