All Activity

This has been happening for many years so isn't really new news. Wages are one of the biggest costs of any organisation so it's no surprise they cut staff when they're under funding pressure.

I wonder if the practice of creating a wooden framework wasn't influenced by the Tudor practice of building with wooden frames. Maybe Brindley thought that, if it worked for houses and halls, it could work for lock building.

I know I don’t need to tell you the history behind all that. Nationwide now have brokerage moorings in various locations although I think they are in some - and perhaps all - cases run by marina staff on an agency basis. It’s also quite likely that when a vendor chooses to sell from a home mooring rather than take their boat to a brokerage site that it is made clear to them that it limits the number of people likely to view the boat as it excludes the casual customer who may ultimately turn out to be a genuine buyer.

That's a very cynical view considering this post is in praise of CRT getting things right. Are you a negative creaking gate or just Midnight bashing? Can you remind me of any post I put on NBW?

Full of contradications and incorrect assumptions, Arthur. And some unnecessarily nasty insinuation. Not at all the response of someone that isn't bothered. The towpath moorings were pretty much all on short term visitor moorings (typically of 5 days limit) and were compliant. The longer stays are the paid ones. Yet you assume you know how I and others boat. I haven't "gotten away" with anything for years. I had a home mooring for six years until two years ago. Full fee paid directly to CRT since it was a CRT permit mooring. I now pay about 40% of that amount in winter mooring fees for 25% of the time on what is essentially the same mooring site. Plus whatever proportion of marina fees goes to CRT. I pay my way as I'm obliged to do and more. It equates to more money direct to CRT than most marina dwellers. So I don't really see that CRT are levelling things up, they're just charging differently in a way that is probably more equitable overall but has some flaws. There is no perfect and totally fair pricing model. It's not the principle I have an issue with, just the rather narrow way they have defined a home mooring for licensing purposes. The problem here isn't your views on what you think is right. It's your attitude to other boaters. Show some respect, just about everybody on the canal is making some contribution and very few are truly detrimental in the bigger picture.

I can afford it 😃

But it doesn't need to be the primary use, it just needs to be "used........for navigation........"

But there is always a 'primary purpose' of any multi funtional item - in the case of a pick up truck the primary purpose is assumed to be for commercial use hence the reason that it has so many tax benefits - including a reduced rate of annual 'road tax'. From the HMRC update Feb 2024 The tax on the benefit-in-kind will now not increase when employers provide these vehicles to their employees; and the capital allowances available in the first year of use will now not be reduced when a business purchases this vehicle for use in their trade. This will ensure a continued generous and consistent treatment of DCPUs for capital allowances, benefit in kind, and VAT purposes, maintaining simplicity in the tax system. In the case of the liveaboard - the primary use of the boat is as the owners 'sole or main' residence.

Lakeland already ran the marina before Nationwide moved out to Fradley Junction, they now use one of the buildings at Fradley by the Swan and are also based in Fradley marina.

The problem with that judgement (which is county court, and doesn't set a precedent) is that it assumes something only has one use. A boat is practical enough to be multi-purpose, and can be used for more than one thing at a time. An analogy might be, that a double-cab pick up truck can simultaneously transport passengers, transport building materials, tow a sizeable trailer, entertain the passengers (because it has a stereo) and charge their mobile phones (because it has power outlets).

In a court case, Mr Stoner QC put forward the suggestion that in fact a Liveaboard can never comply with the CCer requirement to Bona Fide navigate ............... The judge in Davies got bamboozled by Mr Stoner QC's (as he since became) clever rhetoric on the point. As one online commentator noted at the time, if the letter of the law is being followed, it really does not matter why. To say that Mr Davies' movement pattern was unexceptional in itself (the 'continuous journey' argument of BW was rejected - “I think it is right to say however that my decision is not to be taken as fully endorsing the board's guidance. It is possible to envisage use of a vessel which fell short of the Board's concept of continuous cruising but which still qualified the vessel for a licence under section 17(3)( c )(ii).”), but that he was committing a criminal act because he only complied in order to comply – hence was not 'bona fide' in what he was doing - was ludicrous. Mr Davies' downfall, in the eyes of the judge, was that he was “clearly living on the boat”, hence that his purpose with the boat was therefore not for navigating. On that argument, it could never have made any difference no matter what his movement pattern was. Every permanent live-aboard embarked on a progressive journey around the system in their retirement would be unlawful, simply because they had made the boat their sole and permanent home

The exterior shots of Nelson Mandela House , the tower block residence of Delboy in "Only Fools and Horses", were not shot in Peckham. Early episodes were shot in Acton, West London, later ones at a block in Bristol.

I certainly don't have a jaundiced view of boaters without a home mooring. Nor do I have the chip on the shoulder that most BWAHM do (if you prefer the term to CC, as I'm sure yiu do, for obvious reasons). However, doing a staggered series of little chunks of trips during a year, still does not, in my view, qualify as 'bona fide navigation throughout a period". It's no different to what I do and probably a lot less travel, and I certainly don't . It may be "bona fide navigation through several periods with big gaps between", which really isn't the same thing at all. Just because you've got away with it for years, still doesn't make it so, unfortunately. I therefore pay mooring fees to CRT which, while technically are attached to my home mooring, in fact aren't as they are the same wherever I choose to moor, whether on the Shroppie, the upper Macc or the lower. So one leisure boater pays a grand to CRT in addition to their licence, and another doesn't. Perhaps you can now see why CRT have started levelling the playing field?. It is, if course, unfair to those who are actually navigating throught the year, but that's collateral damage caused by those who are gaming the system, either by hiccupping along or illegally residing. You can understand why CRT have got fed up with both. I have no beef with anyone who manipulates the rules to their advantage, it's what we all do. It's academic, it doesn't impinge on my boating at all very much, certainly not enough to bother me. There's certainly nothing personal in it, or I wouldn't have some of the friends I do. What does irritate slightly is the squeals of outrage from some of the gamers when they get gamed back. Luckily, neither of our opinions cut much ice with CRT, who will just do what they do and we'll put up with it. I still think someone who leaves a hundred grand's worth of investment unattended in a public place for weeks on end is a bit weird - it stresses me out leaving mine to go to the shops - but then, we all are, a bit , or we wouldn't do it at all.

In my example, when the boat is used, it is for bona fide navigation, and that takes place throughout the period of the licence. Admittedly not continuous usage, but for how long is a gap in navigation permitted? The 1995 Act says 14 days. I would suggest that my example is more "bona fide navigation" than can be accomplished by any liveaboard boater who has a job requiring a physical presence!

There's more to it than that. It must also be "bona fide for navigation" (link provided above).