Operation Whistle Blower!

Operation Whistle Blower is a community created, led and financed safety solution. Using whistles live aboard boaters can alert each other of possible criminal activity on the towpath. It was born out of community concerns over the rise in incidents on the towpath. It developed out of a conversation I had with a boater after 3 men attempted to break-in his boat whilst he was on-board. It began with the men making noise and shaking his boat. They shined torches in his windows and tried to gain entry. It was very early in the morning and his mobile phone wasn't charged. He had no way to call for help or alert his neighbours. He took a chance and grabbed the nearest thing to a weapon he could find, came out shouting, and scared the men off his boat. I think the element of surprise worked in his favour. He then went back inside, secured the doors, and kept a vigil waiting for their possible return. 

I met him a few days later and we began brainstorming options for communicating danger to our neighbours that would not rely on a constant power source. Our initial idea was for everyone to purchase rape alarms. I took this idea to a forum of boaters to discuss the practicalities and costs. A boater from the forum decided to take the initiative and purchased whistles out of his own pocket. A code of practice was created and flyers were made.

On 26 October 2013, a small group of us delivered whistles to Hackney Wick, Victoria Park, and \Broadway Market moored boats. These areas have reported the highest number of incidents. We asked for donations of 50p to £1 to purchase additional whistles and print more flyers if the boater was onboard. If no one was home, we left a whistle and flyer on the boat. A week or so later, we delivered up the Lee Navigation from Matchmaker's Wharf to the top of Springfield Park, and another boater did Tottenham's Stonebridge Lock area. A Canal and River Trust mooring ranger joined us on the Lee, helping to deliver whistles and introducing himself to boaters. CRT has recently purchased whistles to donate to the project and we will be expanding westward from Broadway Market to Little Venice and beyond!

After a rainy day of delivering whistles we adjourned to a pub on Lea Bridge Road and rewarded ourselves!

Safe As Houses?

This is a camera phone photo taken from the Victoria Park Regent’s Canal visitor mooring. It is a picture of the canal, lock, and Old Ford road. It is a better representation of the late year visibility standard in the early evening and at night. Plenty of people continue to use the towpath after dark, predominantly cyclists, and boaters returning to their boats, but joggers and pedestrians also. Many people believe that this stretch of towpath is safe at night. I have been a boater for over 3 years and I’ve been a visitor to the waterways for over 6 years. Until the incidents of 2012, I never considered this stretch of the towpath to be an unsafe place. I continued to feel safe after my boat was burgled in 2011 on the Duckett’s Cut along Victoria Park. The times I felt uncomfortable coming home alone wouldn’t be more than a couple before Autumn 2012. I wish I could figure out the root causes of why the criminal activity on the towpath has increased, but I do not have the degrees in social, economic, or criminological studies for deeper consideration of the issues. My heart tells me there are many factors involved. It could be austerity, boredom (lack of alternative activities), the rise in the profile of boats (targets) in the public consciousness, and the canals being one of the last places in London with minimal camera coverage. These factors and more could be the driving forces behind the towpath crime wave. What I know is the timeline I made demonstrating an escalation of the criminal activity beginning in Autumn 2012:

13/10/2012- First burglary of the series.

17/10/2012- Total of 3 boats burgled

21/10/2012- 10 boats burgled on this one evening. All boats on Victoria Park mooring vacate, leaving one boat whose owner was away. (If this were to happen again, we should take any unmanned boats with us).

28/10/2012- Two separate community meetings discussing issues around safety were held.

03/11/2012- Start of a weekend of additional burglaries, totalling 5 boats, including at least 1, which the owner was alerted of the crime situation by the community organiser a few days prior.

06/11/2012- One attempted break-in at the Mile End moorings (probably unrelated to the organised Victoria Park burglaries).

11/11/2012- Meeting at the Palm Tree Pub consisting of boaters, Metropolitan Police Marine Unit, C&RT reps, and Metropolitan Police Crime Prevention rep. This was the first meeting where boaters discussed Victoria Park moorings lighting issue with C&RT and Crime Prevention Rep.

03/01/2012- Boaters witnessed youths going along Victoria Park moorings looking at locks on boats. 999 called.

04/01/2012-Boater on Victoria Park mooring took photos of the youths who were again checking out the boats. 999 called, youths apprehended; more details pending.

17/01/13- After a run of prank level vandalism, including people jumping on boats, boats mooring ropes getting cut and boats set adrift during the night, the vandalism moved to life threatening levels. In the early morning, a rope tied to the roof of a boat had its other end tied to the fence of Victoria Park creating a ‘clothesline’, which a commuter cycled into and suffered a skull fracture and a partially paralysed face. 

10/02/13- Two separate cyclists were mugged on the Towpath, one by Victoria Park and the other along the stretch between Broadway Market and Victoria Park.

While these events were taking place, boaters contacted representatives of Canal and River Trust, and Victoria Park in an attempt to get lighting installed on this stretch of towpath, but neither organisation had the funding to provide this safety measure. For a little while concerned boaters gave up on getting lights in Victoria Park. That feeling lasted through the relatively quiet time of Spring and Summer 2013, but the Autumn brought more burglaries taking the criminal activity to a much more frightening level. What’s happened since will be the focus of future posts.  

–Keith Brown Community Organiser Lower Lee and Regent’s Canal

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This is The Light a Way! blogsite

Here we will chronicle the community action to bring light to a dark towpath.

This blog will contain the story of how we got here, articles form community members, and the ongoing, unfolding of the concept which we plan to crowd fund through Spacehive