BW South East Trade Meeting Minutes 2007 to 2009

[alan_fincher]

My Freedom of Information Act request for complaints about failure to find Visitor Moorings in the South East was ultimately (not!) answered on the basis that CRT do not hold the summary information, so are not obliged to provide me with it.

 

So Allan Richard's greater experience () at FOIA requests was quite correct - but fortunately Allan requested all the individual complaints. The answer you will see was that none, (zero, zippo, zilch), were received throughout 2011 and 2012. Now you would not think it hard for them to summarise zero complaints into a further number zero, but clearly it doesn't work like that! Al least between Alan and Allan we now have that answer.

 

However for reasons not entirely obvious to me CRT have decided to supply me with minutes of South East Trade Meetings, up until 2009, when these meetings ceased to be local, and went national.

 

There is quite a lot of reading, again, but I have pulled out a series of extracts from the later dated of these meeting minutes, for topics that I think are relevant to "the trade" influencing the South East Visitor Mooring debate. These leave me in little doubt about where a huge part of the pressure is coming from.

 

Have a look, but if you are a CC-er and easily offended, you ,ay start to get rather annoyed, I rather suspect. (In brief, they want you to pay more and "doss" less!)

 

Although individual names of people in the trade have apparently been redacted in part, in practice because the names of the companies have not, it is fairly easy to see who is saying what throughout the minutes. I believe in each case I have extracted from the chair of the meeting is James Griffin of Wyvern Shipping at Leighton Buzzard. Most of what I quote are "chairman's remarks" unless obviously otherwise, and I believe he was the chair at all these meetings.

 

Minutes of the SE Trade Meeting with British Waterways

Wednesday 7th November 2007

3. Introduction by the Chairman & 3a. Matters arising from BW AGM on 17th October

Chairman’s address

“Welcome to the sixth trade meeting and thank you all for coming.

At these meetings the Trade has put in a lot of time, effort and expertise to help BW operate more efficiently in the running and maintaining of the SE Region. Over the last 3 years much of the meetings have been dominated by the ongoing problems of linear moorings.

At the BW general meeting in Birmingham it was stated that 31,000 boats were now licensed (up from 21,255 in 1998 making an increase of 45% in just 9 years) and that licence and BW mooring fees were to rise by about 9%. I raised the question of the ever increasing number of so called ‘continual cruisers’ and did BW not realise the loss of income and the ill feeling this is causing between boaters who pay for a mooring and those that in practice doss on the towpath and in doing so greatly reduce the cruising experience. The law of diminishing returns was then mentioned and if BW put up mooring fees without closing the loophole of ‘continual cruisers’ not having to pay for a mooring BW income could easily fall. The answer to my question at the meeting was very non-committal and I notice that in the current BW Boat Licence Fees Public Consultation there is no mention of ‘continual cruisers’ as though the problem does not exist. I believe that the main objective of BW must be to “Maintain and extend the waterways to meet the increasing public use of our waterways for the benefit of all and not allow the waterways to become a linear village of continually moored boats who only have to pay a boat licence escaping both mooring fees and council tax.

Yes we have seen Murray and his team try to keep ‘continual cruisers’ on the move but this does not solve the problem or produce income for canal maintenance.

 

Minutes of the SE Trade Meeting with British Waterways

Wednesday 23rd April 2008

 

3. Enforcement

National Boat Check results showed 4525 boats sighted in the South East, 557 of which were unlicenced. Giving an evasion rate of 12.3%. Our plan is to halve and reverse this trend over a 2 year intensive programme.

South East aims to remove 20 liveaboards and 30 Section 8’s during 2008/09 BW has budgeted an £255k covering areas of legal support, contractor costs and staff costs. This compares to last year; 2 liveaboards and 14 Section 8’s

More people are required to reach these targets and we now have 5 Patrol Officers (compared to 4), 3 Enforcement Officers, 3 boat checkers (all new posts) and 3 moorings admin (compared to 2 last year)

These people have a clear workflow process which will help speed up the process.

Questions:

TP pointed out that 2 years ago our evasion rate was down to 4%. Murray pointed out that liveaboards are now seen as affordable housing hence the increase in evasion rates. The trade did not value this as the only reason and had been warning BW over the increase in number of unlicensed craft for the past two years.

James asked how many of the 4524 were continuous cruisers and how many have their own mooring site. Out of the 4524 boats 604 are continuous cruisers.

TP suggested that BW took out the more valuable boats so that selling them would decrease the cost of £255k to BW. Murray explained that we can only take out our costs and the rest goes back to the owner.

The meeting agreed that there was a notable change for the better on moving on boats in the South East.

South East Trade Meeting with British Waterways and their Trade Partners

Wednesday 26 November 2008

 

1. Chairman’s Address

 

Welcome to the eighth trade meeting and thank you all for coming.

At these meetings the Trade has had a good working relationship with BW South East and has put a lot of time, effort and expertise in trying to help BW operate more efficiently in the running and maintaining of the SE Region. Over the last three years much of the meetings have been dominated by the ongoing problems of both official and unofficial linear moorings. I am pleased to report that the increased number of mooring wardens has greatly improved the over staying of so called continuous cruisers and the increased number of patrol officers has helped in reducing the number of unlicensed boats. Many will argue that it was poor BW administration that allowed the number of unlicensed boats to rise to over 12% but I believe things are getting better. However it has just been announced by Simon Salem that BW will not be accepting many of the recommendations of the British Waterways Advisory Forum and implementing a fairer licensing system for 2009. The saving of 2.5% VAT reduction will help the private boater but not the Trade.

 

South East Trade Meeting with British Waterways And their Trade Partners

13 May 2009

 

3. Chairman’s Address (EXTRACT)

Local Patrol |Officers and Mooring Wardens are doing good work in our area in keeping the so called continuous cruisers on the move but it is very disappointing that after two major licensing reviews the boats that use the canal the most and cost BW the most continue to pay the least. This makes no commercial sense and results in much reduced license revenue. With mooring fees continually increasing more and more boats are leaving permanent moorings to become so called Continual Cruisers. The private sector has responded very well in the last six years to the increase in demand for moorings by the building of new marinas and the extension of existing ones. However most marinas have vacancies as more boaters choose not to have a permanent mooring. The Trade, through the British Waterways advisory forum, put forward a strong economical and environmental case for Continual Cruisers and wide beam boats to pay more than the basic boat license. This was supported by the majority of boaters but it would appear BW was only prepared to listen to minority groups. Perhaps we are a Nation that only listens to minority groups! This does raise the question as to why hire licences are 2.4 times that of a Continual Cruiser when they use the canal half as much.

Under the present BW management we have to accept a disproportional increase in Continual cruisers and the problems this brings with it for BW patrol officers and boats cruising the waterways.

 

Overview of marina trade – SJP (EXTRACT)

Out of all the boats that we have sold recently 4 out of the 5 are continuously cruising, working and car shuffling!!!! I do wonder when BW will realise that this is just a licence to bridge hop and cheap living.

The amount of continuously moored boats on the Leicester section just keeps increasing and they again bridge hop to dodge being caught.

They do just about abide by the terms of the agreement but are clogging up all the local bridges and narrow roads - parking in the most ridiculous places.

Sarah reported that moorers were leaving residential and going continuous cruising. 4/5 boats recently sold are continuous.

This was backed up by MK Marina who had lost 7 boats to continuous cruising although brokerage side 50/50 residential/cc.

Crick Marina did not seem to have had a problem with only 1 boat gone cc.

Braunston Marina lost 2 to cc which he believes is because of the credit crunch.

Calcutt Boats felt that boats move to where they live and not an issue to him.

Union Wharf felt they did not have enough boats to cause an issue to them.

Alvenchurch Marina not aware of major issues just normal movements.

10. New visitor 24hr mooring sites

It was asked if additional 24 hour moorings could be sited as users park in permanent moorings when they are unable to find a 24 hour site. A paper written on this subject by Sally Ash was thought to have been discussed but TP was under the impression that this may have been dropped.

Comments were made that BW have had natural wastage on moorings and have decided to take revenue and not make 24 hour moorings.

Jeff Whyatt suggested that a questionnaire be produced and sent to the trade asking where they would like the 24 hr moorings so that he can take this further.

 

If you wish to see more, CRT have appended all the relevant files to my FOI request here

Edited February 28, 2013 by alan_fincher

[GUMPY]

Oh Im so surprised NOT

as I said in My last post it has been sat on for a while.

The other thing is that despite what you all might believe CaRT dont have to do what we want they can still as BW could do what they feel is best for the waterways