48 objections received. A committee report has been produced, which seems a bit confused about access to lock 86.
"The access to the lock at Princess Street will not be affected by the proposals and the proposals will have no impact on the statutory right of navigation. There is no need for canal boat users (including horse boaters) to climb up from the canal over the canal wall onto Canal Street or vice versa as the lock 86 can be operated from a boat within the canal itself. Horse boating along a higher level towpath such as Canal Street requires one person to be in charge / control of the horse, one person to be in charge / control of the boat and ideally a third person to go ahead to set the next lock (or otherwise the person in charge of the boat)." As they'd specifically been told about the need to climb over the wall to work lock 86 (or get off the front of a boat going down the lock), this is either wilful obscuring of the issue, or plain misunderstanding. For the latest report: http://www.publicaccess.manchester.gov.uk/associateddocs/selecteddoc.aspx?089880-OCO-0001.pdf The application says they put up new site notices on Friday, and as I'm just off to Manchester I'll check them out (expiry date 19 June for further comment). I think I might add in that any BW contribution is at the expense of canal maintenance generally. (I put in a phone call to the case officer Angela Leckie but she'd just gone home for the day.) It's likely to go to committee on Thursday 23rd July, 2 p.m. I'm probably on holiday but it's good to have objectors there in person.
