THE heroic deeds of two Oxfordshire lock keepers have featured in a report urging the Environment Agency to keep them on the Thames.

The GMB union report responds to the Environment Agency’s intention to rent out lock houses on the Thames to private tenants.

Last month Osney lock keeper Ray Riches received an award for “courage and integrity” in his unsuccessful attempt to save a disabled man from drowning.

The grandfather-of-two dived into the freezing water to help the man who had fallen from the path on his mobility scooter.

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The 66-year-old was unable to prevent the tragedy but was commended by the police.

In February Richard Hawkins helped prevent a boat from sinking when it came loose from its moorings and was being pulled towards the weir at Abingdon.

Justin Bowden, GMB press officer, said: “We need residential lock keepers based on the overall picture of incidents along the River Thames and the amount of life-saving and preventative intervention they carry out.

“Clear examples of this are the lock keepers at Osney and Abingdon, whose actions have been life-saving as recently as earlier this year.”

Mr Hawkins, 26, from Abingdon, who has been a lock keeper for seven years, was woken by the boat owner at 7.30am asking for help.

He pulled the boat to the river bank using a rope, but when the owner tried to get on board he slipped and fell into the river.

Mr Hawkins threw him a rope and helped him out of the water.

The same month Mr Hawkins grabbed a small boy who had slipped over on the flooded riverbank and was being dragged by the fast-flowing flood water towards the main river channel.

The GMB report criticised an Environment Agency report on its lock keepers. It said: “It fails to fully consider the impact of not having residential lock keepers and the potential damage to property, the loss of life and recorded near misses that have been avoided as a consequence of a residential lock keeper being in-situ.”

The report also claimed that the risk of flooding would be increased if the residential lock keepers were moved on.

It read: “The proposed two-hour response target to localised incidents, compared to the current time of 15 minutes, will significantly increase the risk of flooding. Residential lock keepers are on-hand to respond rapidly to rising water levels.”

Earlier this year the Environment Agency said it was likely to reduce staff numbers from the previous forecast of about 11,250 at the end of March 2014 to about 9,700 by October.

It added that the planned reductions in posts would not affect the agency’s ability to respond to flooding incidents.

Agency spokeswoman Freya Dean said: “At the sites where we do not have resident lock and weir keepers, the house that we previously provided rent and council tax-free, as part of their benefits package, is instead rented out to a private tenant, providing us with extra income which we reinvest in the service we provide boaters on the Thames.

“All the duties formally carried out by the resident lock keeper are carried out by full-time non-resident keepers instead.”

She added: “Our lock sites only cover one per cent of the total length of the navigable non-tidal Thames.

“Many incidents take place on the other 99 per cent and are dealt with by the emergency services.”

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