This was not how British Waterways, guardian of our thousands of miles of canals and many of its rivers, wants to see itself portrayed: an enemy of boaters.
But in its dash to sell off and regenerate large numbers of waterside sites around the country, it didn’t anticipate the level of protest it has met at one small boatyard in Oxford.
Bailiffs have been called in to evict protesters occupying the 150-year-old Castle Mill boatyard in Oxford’s quirky Jericho area, to make way for yet another canalside apartment scheme, despite the protesters having prominent backers, including Philip Pullman, the best-selling author.
With property values in Oxford soaring, the 1 acres at Castle Mill have become highly desirable: the land is valued at about £4m. For years, British Waterways has sought to develop it, only to have its plans thrown out by both local planners and on appeal.
Its latest attempt, in partnership with Bellway Homes, was for a scheme to build 46 homes, restaurants, a piazza, and boat hire facilities. The original plan featured blocks of flats up to four storeys high, almost double the height of the workers’ cottages surrounding the site. Initially rejected in 2004 by Oxford council, the proposal sparked a public inquiry and went to the government planning inspector, who eventually rejected it.
British Waterways is nothing if not determined, however, and is trying a fresh tack. Once the site is empty, it will sell it to one of six developers bidding for it. Whoever gets it will submit new plans for approval. It’s not clear if Bellway is among the bidders.
Possibly nowhere else on the waterways network would such a protest hit the national headlines, but this is Oxford. Pullman, who lives on the city’s northern outskirts, is a passionate supporter of the protesters.
The writer used the floating community of some 100 or so boaters as the inspiration for his society of canal-dwelling Gyptians, who proved crucial to the rescue of his heroine, Lyra, in The Subtle Knife, the second volume of the enormously successful His Dark Materials trilogy.
“What’s good about the place is all the things that make it interesting in a human way,” says the author. “It’s visually very rich, very nourishing.
“Work and living take place side by side. It’s craft-based work, not heavy industry — lifting boats out of the water, repairing them, and all this takes place in the same area as the church, the pub, houses. It means you’ve got life. If they build on it, they are sure to put some Identikit housing development there.”
Jericho takes its name from the local pub, the Jericho Tavern. It was originally an industrial area that grew up because of the presence of the canal, which had arrived in 1790, and ironworks, wharves, and the Oxford University Press were based there. Its residential streets are mostly little two-up, two-down Victorian workers’ houses. Once seen as a slum and slated for demolition, it is now one of Oxford’s most desirable areas.
“You’d expect to pay £275,000-£300,000 for a house in poor condition there, and £350,000 upwards for one in nice condition,” says David Thomas of Thomas Merrifield, a local estate agency. “People are queuing up to buy new flats in the old ironworks. They’ve just sold two penthouses there, off-plan, for £1m each. This sector and the north Oxford area have become almost as expensive as London.”
When Jericho was a raffish down-at-heel industrial quarter, it was largely left to its own devices — although the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement built the impressive St Barnabas, complete with Italianate campanile, right behind the boatyard, to bring order to working-class anarchy.
Similarly, back in the days when canals were under-used and under threat, hippyish boaters established themselves here and in linked backwaters leading to the Thames. The boat community and the Jericho community were as one: an alternative society of sorts, the antithesis of scholarly gown and mortarboard Oxford.
This is what made it such powerful material for Pullman’s unique take on the city. “I liked the colour and atmosphere, and people talking about the water there,” he says.
It is not like that today, however, and he hates the way money is destroying the character of the Oxford he loves. “It’s getting like any other city centre in the whole bloody country. If they build 46 homes here they will ruin life for maybe 100 other homes that happen to be floating. It seems barmy to sell this off. Nobody’s got the whole picture.”
Adrian Arbib, a photographer who is one of the leading campaigners against redevelopment, says: “British Waterways is trying desperately to get us out. They’ve never been shown up like this before. They never mention residential boaters. They want to turn the whole canal system into a leisure park.”
Eugen Baston, a spokesman for British Waterways, disagrees. “We’re absolutely committed to residential boating on the Oxford canal,” he says. “Alternative facilities have been established by the boatyard’s ex-tenant three miles away, and we have offered the occupiers another site for DIY repairs.”
Proceeds from the boatyard sale will be reinvested in the waterways, true. True also that 35% of the new housing will be “affordable” at the insistence of planners. So economics rule.
But I’m with Pullman: the outcome will be the loss of yet another eccentrically colourful corner of old England.
British Waterways tends to clump all its waterside schemes together under the blanket term “regeneration”. This looks good, particularly when it meets government targets by releasing post-industrial “brownfields” land. The waterways network is full of derelict sites, particularly in the Midlands and the north, and in many places such regeneration is both real and welcome.
East Manchester, in particular, is undergoing a strong revival thanks to several ambitious canalside developments.
The downside to all this, however, is that too many such schemes look the same wherever they are. They threaten the distinctive character of the largely Georgian canal network. The battle for Jericho’s waterfront is a fight against bland uniformity. British Waterways would do well to learn from it.
[© The Times, 04/06/06]
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