RWB - A Broken Window: How Mindless Destruction Turned into Positive Action

Ever since we based a trip-boat on the canal at Royal Wootton Bassett in March 2024, a small minority have tried to damage it.

From the start, we protected the mooring site with fencing and we put wooden boards over the side windows. However, several times in the summer and autumn, vandals have intruded and removed the wooden panels, but up to now, the windows have remained intact.

On Friday 17 January, we were alerted by an eagle-eyed walker who told us that a front window had been broken. We investigated and found that the fencing had been attacked for the second time in a week. We saw the broken window and reported the crime to the Police.  

We later found out that this time the vandals had got onto the landing-stage pontoon and fired a ball-bearing gun at close range, shattering one of the front windows. The steel ball-bearing was lying amongst the shattered glass. Surely there can be very few households in the town where such ball-bearing guns are kept.

On Saturday, a Facebook emergency fundraiser was published, and we were amazed at the generosity of donors. We had asked for just over £1,000 - which was of course far more than just replacing the toughened-glass window. It was enough to replace the fencing with a much more secure steel gate and tall fence panels with three-pointed paling, to deter further attacks. Within a day, the total stood at over double what we’d asked for. Many thanks to those who donated – and to those many people who expressed their disgust at the way the vandals had behaved.

In addition to paying for the new fencing and window, there is enough money to providing welded steel guides to hold much neater window covers, just like those on ‘Dragonfly’ in Swindon. Not only that, but we can now install CCTV on and around the boat, sending messages and recording photo evidence of intruders walking uninvited on to the boat.

Looking forward to the Spring, we hope to have the boat ready for the new season of Saturday trips. We have a team of trained skippers and crew, and we aim to run trips on the hour on Saturdays plus charters. We have a beautiful stretch of canal and some lovely countryside including the Marlborough Downs to the south.

Steve Bacon, Chair, Royal Wootton Bassett branch