Canal society buys mooring (From Basingstoke Gazette)
When news happens, text BAZ and your photos or videos to 80360. Or contact us by email and phone.
Volunteers run passenger boat from Odiham
3:00pm Tuesday 23rd October 2012 in News By Chris Gregory
VOLUNTEERS who run a passenger boat from Odiham have bought its mooring.
The Basingstoke Canal Society has used the Colt Hill Wharf, in London Road, Odiham, for 30 years as a base for its passenger boat the John Pinkerton.
When Hampshire County Council announced its intention to sell the mooring earlier this year, the society paid more than £50,000 to secure its future in Odiham.
As well as the mooring, the sale includes half of a barn, which will be used as storage.
The group, formerly known as the Surrey and Hampshire Canal Society, received a £5,352 grant from Hart District Council to help pay for the land. Philip Riley, the society’s chairman, thanked Councillor Ken Crookes, leader of Hart District Council, during a trip on the John Pinkerton.
He added: “The barn should provide a very useful workshop and storage facility for the boat operation.”
Roger Cansdale, editor of the society’s Basingstoke Canal News, told The Gazette: “We would have been happy to carry on as we were but the land was put up for sale, and it’s fortunate we had the wherewithal to buy it.”
As previously reported in The Gazette, the society will spend £150,000, left by former member Alan Knight in his will, on a new and improved boat – the John Pinkerton II.
