The royal barge Gloriana, presented to the Queen as a gift to mark her Diamond Jubillee by Lord Sterling and others, has been seeking a permanent home ever since she led the river pageant during the jubilee celebrations in 2012.
It seems astonishing now, but there was a time, 100 or so years ago, when Staines was considered a riverside resort to rank alongside the likes of Marlow and Henley.
A couple of months back I wrote a piece in this column exalting in the fact that Environment Agency inspectors had nabbed a significant number of boats on our stretch of the Thames which weren’t displaying the proper registration licence sticker and urging all boat owners to do the right thing and apply for the river equivalent of a tax disc.
