At the Olympic Slalom selection event in Lee Valley, April 2012, it is being considered whether to stage a protest to raise public awareness. To make it clear: It would not be an attempt to disrupt, delay or sabotage the event. Absolutely no intention to impact on the event at all, just making use of the event to raise awareness. A simple case of lining the banks with people holding "No Access", "No Canoeing", "Private River" etc. banners. The point would be to raise public awareness of the issue facing all river users, walkers, swimmers, SUP, SOT, canoeists and kayakers with access to rivers and of the attempts to control use of the natural resource, and restrict public use.
The main thrust of this is being generated by recreational paddlers, however, competition based canoeists, swimmers and others have been involved in previous campaigns and suffer the same discrimination of access to training/competition facilities as recreational paddlers.
If you think this is a good or bad idea please say so, and please indicate if you would be willing to support/attend.
It would be good to get as many responses as possible, from a range of paddlers/river users, so that a gauge of overall opinion can be assessed.
Thanks Simon
![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)