NB
These draft letters are based on letters already sent by campaign team members that you can use as a
template and add your own individual views. Please act now as your support is critical to our success! Thank you!

Do, please, write your own letter! Some of the suggested text below can be used - but I am certain you will want to write shorter letters! Scroll on down to the bottom of this page for an example!

Mike Hill

Northmoor Weir Campaign Chairman

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Natasha Alden, Office of David Cameron MP
Postal: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Telephone: 0207 219 3475
Email: ALDENN@parliament.uk

Dear Mr Cameron
I am writing urgently to you, as the Prime Minister, concerning Northmoor Weir and the disproportionate spending proposal amounting to £3 million of tax payer money over the next 2 years.

No doubt you have now seen the responses from the HSE, and from the Ministry responsible for the HSE, to Nicola Blackwood MP’s questions regarding the proposed replacement of Northmoor Weir, which is due to start imminently.
There are clear conclusions that emerge from the HSE and Work and Pensions responses, together with the additional information already in the public domain, and they are as follows:

• The law does not expect the employer to eliminate all risk. So far as is reasonably practicable, an employer should weigh the risk against the cost and/or effort needed to manage it. The Environment Agency has categorically not done this in regard to the replacement of Northmoor Weir. Indeed, the EA said at a meeting in Northmoor that they had to eliminate risk and that because of that a cost of £10 million would be permissible if necessary to do that. Despite the fact that there are no records of reported paddle and rymer safety incidents in the last 5 years (and, indeed, for much longer than that) the EA proposes to spend circa. £3 million with no cost benefit analysis performed and on a project that would almost certainly fail such an analysis.

• The money allocated to this project will come from the Flood Defence Grant-in-Aid and will therefore take money away from flood defences in a flood-prone area on a project that the EA do not expect to affect flood risk in any material way. This cannot to justified by any rational and well-run government department charged with optimizing value from scarce public resources. If you look on the Northmoor Weir website, you berated the Labour Government at the time for cutting the Flood Defence Grant-in-Aid. This work, if not halted at once, will have the same detrimental effect. In Oxfordshire alone there are currently around 200,000 homes and businesses in communities that desperately need flood defences and the money allocated to Northmoor weir will be much better spent there.

• Northmoor is the last purpose built station left in the UK, possibly in the world, with a full-span paddle and rymer weir representing the pinnacle of Victorian river navigation and flood control technology. It is the most accessible station, clearly visible from the Thames Path, the river, and nearby camping paddocks. One of the EA’s own consultation documents reports that this stretch of the river is a major recreational asset with an estimated 50,000 visitors and 5,000 boats passing through Northmoor Lock each year. The document states that “Many recreational users of the lock and Thames Path National Trail value the heritage value of the site.” The Station is as effective and efficient in the 21st Century as when it was built nearly 120 years ago. The technology retained during the 1995 refurbishment (with its original Victorian cill - into which the rymers slot - removed, cleaned and replaced on the riverbed) so resembles the original structure that Victorian bargemen and lock keepers would still be able to operate it if alive today.

I do hope that you will be able to address these issues within the EA and I look forward to hearing urgently what actions you will take to suspend this costly and unnecessary work.

With many thanks.

Dr Paul Leinster,
CEO and Legal Office
Environment Agency
Horizon House, Deanery Road, Bristol, BS1 5AH
Telephone: 0370 8506506
Email: paul.leinster@environment-agency.gov.uk

Dear Dr Leinster

I am writing urgently to you, as the CEO of the Environment Agency, concerning Northmoor Weir and your
disproportionate spending proposal amounting to £3 million of tax payer money over the next 2 years.

No doubt you have now seen the responses from the HSE, and from the Ministry responsible for the HSE, to Nicola Blackwood MP’s questions regarding the proposed replacement of Northmoor Weir, which is due to start imminently.

There are clear conclusions that emerge from the HSE and Work and Pensions responses, together with the
additional information already in the public domain, and they are as follows:

• The law does not expect you as an employer to eliminate all risk! So far as is reasonably practicable, you should weigh the risk against the cost and/or effort needed to manage it. It is clear that you, as an agency, have categorically not done this in regard to the replacement of Northmoor Weir. Indeed, you have through your local staff, at a meeting in Northmoor that you have to eliminate risk and that because of that a cost of £10 million would be permissible if necessary to do that. Despite the fact that there are no records of reported paddle and rymer safety incidents in the last 5 years (and, indeed, for much longer than that) you propose to spend circa. £3 million with no cost benefit analysis performed and on a project that would almost certainly fail such an analysis.

• The money allocated to your project will come from the Flood Defence Grant-in-Aid and will therefore take money away from flood defences in a flood-prone area on a project that you do not expect to affect flood risk in any material way. This cannot be justified by any rational and well-run government department charged with optimizing value from scarce public resources. In Oxfordshire alone there are currently around 200,000 homes and businesses in communities that desperately need flood defences and the money allocated to Northmoor weir will be much better spent there.

• Northmoor is the last purpose built station left in the UK, possibly in the world, with a full-span paddle and rymer weir representing the pinnacle of Victorian river navigation and flood control technology. It is the most accessible station, clearly visible from the Thames Path, the river, and nearby camping paddocks. One of the EA’s own consultation documents reports that this stretch of the river is a major recreational asset with an estimated 50,000 visitors and 5,000 boats passing through Northmoor Lock each year. The document states that “Many recreational users of the lock and Thames Path National Trail value the heritage value of the site.” The Station is as effective and efficient in the 21st Century as when it was built nearly 120 years ago. The technology retained during the 1995 refurbishment (with its original Victorian cill - into which the rymers slot - removed, cleaned and replaced on the riverbed) so resembles the original structure that Victorian bargemen and lock keepers would still be able to operate it if alive today.

I do hope that you will be able to address these issues within your own organisation and I look forward to hearing urgently what actions you will take to suspend this costly and unnecessary work.

With many thanks.