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A SOW banner next to the information point.
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An annual event, featuring a large bat gathering with a
local community festival, which this year had a very large SOW presence.
Excellent weather bought huge numbers of visitors to the event. SOW banners
were very much in evidence along the towpath and on individual boats. David
Gauke MP made a speech in the main arena about the campaign, and Mike Stevens
gave a talk on the subject in the floating classroom Elsdale II.
A local constituency SOW petition was collecting signatures,
and obtained over 1,500 during the weekend to add to the 500+ collected at the
Marsworth campaign event in March. Mr Gauke plase to present the petition to
Parliament some time in June.
Report & photos by Mike
Stevens
Campaigners Simon & Debbi collecting
petition signatures.
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Debbi Figuerido writes :
Just finished a third recount and the official total of
people who signed the petition was 1557 which is amazing. That means that Simon
and I plus those lovely people at the Chiltern Branch of the Inland Waterways
Association must have spoken with around 3000 people over the weekend regarding
the impact of the funding cuts on the canals in SW Herts.
Lots of people during the weekend came up to us and asked to
sign the petition as they were already aware of it and the cuts being made to
the funding to the inland waterways. Many others wanted to know who DEFRA were,
what the government were doing and what and why the cuts. A very tiny minority
were not interested but we were very heartened by the majority of all ages,
colours, creeds and abilities who did know something and who wanted to do
something about an amenity that really matters to them.
Canals mean a lot of different things to many different
people but they all value them, whether it's a lovely day out for the whole
family, somewhere to walk relaxing after a stressful day at work, somewhere to
fish, cycle, jog, boat .
Let's keep this protest going and try and make a difference
to the Comprehensive Spending Review after the summer. People in SW Herts and
the visitors all value the inland waterways and want them to be adequately
funded. |
