Steve Lloyd of Paradise Court, Leominster, thinks there is not enough river access (From Hereford Times)

Steve Lloyd of Paradise Court, Leominster, thinks there is not enough river access

8:00am Tuesday 19th June 2012 in Letters

I TOTALLY agree with Valerie Blake (Readers’ Times, June 7) about Herefordshire not being mentioned on the news, either regarding the Olympic events or the Wye trow being in the royal pagent.

Herefordshire seems to be the last county on the minds of even the weather presenters.

I complained to the BBC about the fact that our regional weather presenter actually used to stand so as to block out Hereford on the weather maps.

I for one would like to know where the trow The Hereford Bull will reside after being built in Gloucestershire In my opinion it should be moored on the Wye near the rowing club so that visitors travelling on the A49 can see it and identify it with Hereford and its county. The river Wye is still classed as a navigable river but due to a lack of facilities it is hardly used by anything larger than a canoe.

The simple fact is that there are no public access points to the water’s edge that are not controlled by some club or other, until you get to Ross-on- Wye.

At that point there have been two disabled facilities built recently to cater for canoes.

Anything bigger is still not catered for.

I would have thought that if people with less mobility, as I describe myself, were allowed to use open canoes then it would have been an added safety factor to allow small craft such as dinghies to use the facility as they are more stable.

I made enquiries about being able to sail my boat at Bodenham as there are disabled facilities there. But I was told that there is no public access allowed to the site and the only sailing done there is by disabled education groups.

I really think it is high time Herefordshire Council got its act together and started actively promoting Herefordshire as a place to go to and open all those avenues of access for people to enjoy life. I thought the “closed shop” attitude fell by the wayside back in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, despite being a Herefordshire resident since 1964, I will have to tow my boat 50 miles to Clewydog Resevoir or Bala Lake to enjoy a day’s sailing for less than £10.

STEVE LLOYD, Paradise Court, Leominster.