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124
Board of Trade (Harbour Department),
7 Whitehall Gardens, London, S.W.,
27th June, 1898.
Sir,
With further reference to your letter of the 10th inst., in which you transmit copy of
correspondence which has passed between the Vestry of Rotherhithe and the Conservators
of the River Thames upon the subject of a Campshed which has been constructed by Mr. John
Hollway in front of a public right-of-way adjoining Trinity Wharf, Rotherhithe, I am directed
by the Board of Trade to state for the information of the Vestry that plans of the work in
question were submitted by the Conservators for the approval of this department in accordance
with the provisions of the Thames Conservancy Act, 1894, and received the approval of
the Board of Trade on the 11th October last.
I am at the same time to inform you that the Board of Trade are not prepared to express
any opinion as to the powers of the Conservators in approving works such as the one
now in question, and I am to add that with their present information the Board are not disposed
to consider the Campshed as otherwise than a local improvement.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. H. W. PELHAM.
The Clerk to the Vestry of Rotherhithe,
Lower Road, S.E.
Town Hall, Rotherhithe, S.E.,
7th July, 1898.
Sir,
I submitted your favour of 27th June, 1898, in this matter to the Vestry at their last
meeting, when I was directed to express the Vestry's extreme regret that the Board of
Trade are not prepared to give any opinion as to the powers of the Conservators, inasmuch
as the Vestry feel they have a grievance which, in the absence of the intervention of the
Board, it is impossible to have righted without recourse to the law, and to enquire whether the
Board, when approving the plans for the Campshed, were aware that the Vestry's sanction
thereto had not been given, and that they were, in fact, ignorant of the whole matter until
the Campshed had been completed, and whether the Board would sanction the construction
of works in front of the land abutting the river against the wishes of the owner of such land.
I am also to say, in answer to your statement that the Board look upon the Campshed
as a local improvement, that, in the opinion of the Vestry, the same is a source of great danger
to barges coming alongside, and that they are already in receipt of complaints that the