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Frustration over hazards caused by abandoned boats

Paul Murphy,East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire climate and environment correspondentand
Eleanor Maslin
News imageBBC A rusty abandoned boat sits next to a river bank.BBC
River users have expressed concerns over the dangers of abandoned boats along the River Hull

Boat users say the danger posed by abandoned vessels on the River Hull is getting worse.

The issue has been a concern for years. Some sunken boats were removed from the river in 2016, and the following year East Riding of Yorkshire Council said 10 others between Tickton and Beverley Beck must be taken away, but many are still abandoned.

Local boat owner Lucy Welsh said: "It's hard to navigate because you have to be careful you don't catch the hull on the bottom of anything. It could cause major damage."

Iain Campbell, a trustee at the Beverley Barge Preservation Society, said: "It's getting narrower and narrower, and more and more difficult to safely take people on trips."

News imageA woman with long blonde hair is wearing a sandy brown jacket and smiling at the camera. She is standing on a river bank in front of an abandoned boat on a sunny day.
Lucy Welsh says the River Hull is hard to navigate

Referring to one particular abandoned boat, Welsh said it held a lot of history. It was a light vessel on the Humber Estuary before being decommissioned and turned into a house boat called Audrey.

"If they've got a history to them it would be amazing to rescue them and salvage that," she said.

"It would be nice to see this one in a museum one day to see what the light vessels did for us in the early days.

"But the ones which are scrap and worthless are just hazards to us as river users now."

She said they could also harm wildlife, with some of the vessels still containing fuel and oil.

News imageAn aerial view of a large, long abandoned vessel next to a river bank. Smaller boats are dotted around it.
Large vessels left abandoned and sunken along the river

Campbell, from the preservation society, said: "People take on a boat and maybe use it for a short while, and then they get bored with it or whatever.

"They don't realise the cost of disposal [when they take on a boat]. They don't factor that in."

He said abandoned boats caused huge environmental damage and made life "much more difficult for other people navigating the river".

Campbell said one of the problems was that the River Hull had no navigation authority to manage the vessels.

News imageA man with short white hair and a white beard and moustache is wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt and smiling at the camera. He is standing next to a boat with the name "Syntan" painted on to it. Terraced houses are on the other side of the narrow river.
Iain Campbell says it is getting more difficult to take people on boat trips safely

In February last year, an Environment Agency spokesperson told the BBC that the removal of the boats was "the responsibility of the boat owners."

They added: "We would like to reassure local communities that we continue to monitor the situation in the River Hull for environmental impacts and increases to flood risk to local communities, and there are no significant risks."

The agency has been approached again for further comment.

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