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Open letter challenges Powys County Council (PCC) on their reluctance to re-open the Upper Glas-y-Bont
South Wales Outdoor Activity Providers Group (SWOAPG) • 18 December 2024
Open letter challenges Powys County Council (PCC) on their reluctance to re-open the Upper Glas-y-Bont common on the river Wye in Glasbury for paddlesports.
The River Wye between Glasbury and Hay has been used by canoeists for over 100 years, by virtue of permission granted for the public launching of canoes by the landowner of Upper Glas-y-Bont Common. Powys County Council has owned this site since 1994. In April 2021 the Council suspended canoe launching at Glas-y-Bont Common while it conducted a Habitat Regulations Assessment (HRA) to evaluate the potential impact of paddlesports on the river environment. This routine process has still not been completed after the passage of more than 3½ years. SWOAPG, with local activity providers, craft hire operators and national representative bodies, has been working with the Council to develop a ‘concordat arrangement’ which would enable paddlesport touring activity to resume at the site, for both individual users and businesses.
Broad agreement had been reached early this year, when a group of fishery owners stepped in and demanded restrictions far beyond those requested by both the Council and Natural Resources Wales (NRW, the environmental regulator). The Council seems reluctant to challenge the fisheries group for fear of legal repercussions and has recently announced that the concordat arrangement is ‘on hold’. Paddlesport organisations are now calling on the Council to take a less cautious approach to break the deadlock and resume public access to this important stretch of river that has been the starting point for so many paddlers’ journeys of recreational discovery and development.
Summary
- Organisations representing paddlesport enthusiasts and businesses have sent an ‘open letter’ to the Chair of Powys County Council urging him to break a deadlock that has arisen with fishery owners around permission to launch canoes and other paddle-craft at a traditional recreational site in Glasbury-on-Wye in Powys, mid-Wales.
- The site at Glas-y-Bont Common has been used for decades by thousands of educational groups, families and individuals to discover and develop a passion for paddlesports.
- This is now threatened by a small group of fishery owners who claim that ‘canoeists have destroyed the river’, despite this healthy activity being supported by Wales’ national environmental regulator.
Background
See Open letter to Chair of Powys County Council – South Wales Outdoor Activity Providers Group.
SWOAPG is the representative body for providers of outdoor activities in South Wales and Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park, whose aim is the promotion and development of sustainable outdoor activity provision.
HRAs have been conducted routinely within a matter of weeks by NRW for other, privately-owned, launch sites on this stretch of river. Because the Glas-y-Bont Common is owned by a public body, the County Council (rather than NRW) is responsible for conducting this HRA and has taken an exceptionally lengthy and cautious approach in doing so.
Drafts of the proposed concordat arrangements were published in Jan 2024 at River Wye Glasbury-Hay – proposed Concordat arrangements – South Wales Outdoor Activity Providers Group.
A restrictive covenant at the Glas-y-Bont Common prohibits “canoeing…activities…which would interfere with or interrupt the…enjoyment or right…to use the River Wye pursuant to any fishing rights” – but does not specify whether this is intended to apply to the entire river or merely the stretch of river adjacent to the site. The Council has granted permission for paddlers to launch craft here since it was acquired in 1994, but fisheries have only in the last few years raised objections referring to this covenant.
Limited paddlesport access to this stretch of river is currently available using private sites owned by accommodation providers and a craft hire business but is subject to restricted terms and numbers and controlled by the sites’ owners, in contrast to the Glas-y-Bont site which is freely accessible to the public.
This information can also be viewed directly on the SWOAPG website.
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