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Whenever issues like this come up the same few people come on with some of them criticising CaRT using phrases like "incompetence", "buggering around", " failure", "obstructive behaviour" etc, yet these comments are coming from the very same peopl;e who seek to "represent" other boaters at various consultation meetings, and then wonder why they don't get anywhere. I fully understand why people feel like they do, but if they are going to use such confrontational language on a public forum how do they expect to be taken seriously in closed meetings? I spent more than twenty years as Trades Union representative on various Consultative Committees, and one quicklly learns that you achieve far more by restraining hostile feelings and only going into attack when you have a cast iron case, and even then civil language won far more arguements than insult.

How come everything on here ends up in a pointless debate! Jill, I live in Yorkshire but me and the misses are willing to help if no one closer, it would be a pleasure, no payment needed but the butties do sound a good bribe , I am available from May 1st to the 7th, if that helps you, the misses needs more notice all the best Dave email - david_marshall@btopenworld.com

Steve Timebeck doesn't actually own a boat/hold a licence for CRT waters though, so I am not sure why his opinion on how CRT work with those that live aboard and deal with issues such as the RMP is relevant anyway? Surely it is an issue for boaters to see the pros or cons of, as they will potentailly be affected, whether local or not? Confused.

When angrily responding to a post you vehemently disagree with it is possible to hit the greenie button instead of the quote button. I think, this is why my greenie count is so high.

Oh got ya, Thanks DH, Is that all this 'Have a greeny' thing ?. How do you give them,or is it an automatic thing.

At the time, we were actually pushing for community moorings, based on a boat club sort of structure. We were however, told by John Dodwell and Sally Ash, that the RMP was a simpler and better favoured option. We trusted the view of both, a mistake that has now become evident. Lesson learnt.....

I assume that you all have some sort of contract or mooring agreement, and if CaRT are not complying with their part of the arrangements, i would have thought that you have the right to take legal action against them. If you do not have a contract, etc. i would suggest witholding part (or all) of your rent until they rectify matters, but make it clear that you are witholding rent until matters are resolved, rather than refusing to pay. Keep records of all incidents, conversations and lack of maintenance, including photographs which could be used in the event of you taking legal action or you dedfending yourselves for witholding rent

A Morco is an instantaneous water heater, heating water only when you turn a tap ON. It can't be connected to a calorifier. Rather than asking the board to spend even more time advising on a possibly non-existent situation, go and look at the boat first, then ask questions here once you KNOW what is installed, or not! Don't guess. MtB P.S. Forgot to say, from what you say, the boat now has no method of heating at all. This lowers its value significantly. I suggest you look at other boats instead. An owner taking out a heating system just prior to sale sounds like an inveterate fiddler and a flake, not someone I'd want as a previous owner of my boat!

The main reason we do not take the boat into London any more is that it is now pretty much full of CC'ers. As a BW chap said to me 10 years ago,"in the 70's the canals were mainly populated by waterways enthusiasts,these days they are considered as cheap housing for inconsiderate people." The situation does not seem to have improved ? CT

CANAL & RIVER TRUST UPDATE: ROVING MOORING PERMITS The Canal & River Trust has reluctantly concluded that roving mooring permits, which it was proposing to introduce in two local areas from April 2014, cannot be used to deal with localised issues of mooring congestion on the waterways. This follows further consideration of legal issues which raised doubts about the practical implications of implementing the scheme. We would like to thank everyone who has helped us to develop and explore these proposals; those involved in this process had been assured previously that the proposal was deliverable, and bear no responsibility for this late change. We will continue to work with local boaters to improve understanding of the Trust's guidance for boaters without a home mooring and to develop ways to help people to comply.

I guess if CRT are now saying its illegal after first coming up with the idea in 2009 then it is. In their defence in the Nick Brown case they effectively argued they were as were winter towpath agreements. Alan you say a lot were in favour but I would argue that numbers involved (limited to between 30-40 due to the space required if I recall one of Sally Ash's comments) were just a pin prick in relation to the number of boaters now in London and wishing to remain within a fairly narrow geographic area , same in the Southern K&A. We need therefore to address the bigger picture with a process that can be applied across the system. Within the current legal framework I'm not sure there is a simple answer. But there are some basic steps CRT can follow I believe. 1. Urgently make available more canal side mooring where boats can get pins in.where for example towpaths had been tarmaced etc. 2. Ensure depth to enable boats can get in to the side. 3. Invest in more taps and facilities reducing bottle necks 4. Even handed enforcement this means tackling the intransigent boaters not just asking the compliant ones to move. 5. Identify and focus on those that don't move rather than those that don't move far enough. 6. Create a compulsory congestion charge surcharge to cover London canals (for those without a home mooring) which entitles the holder to a London wide RMP type movement, and pays for 1-3 above. These are just personal ramblings and I suspect 6 is again not permitted by the current legislation. But I thought I'd get the ball rolling .

And, if in a boat yard where others are painting/blacking at that time... then you are likely to be lynched!

It makes it a bit damp with a roof exit exhaust as well

Is that the best counter arguement you can marshall? It was hardly whinging and moaning, I was admittedly demonstating my irritation at still receiving emails despite being unsubscribed but I did not use any offensive of derogatory language to describe CaRT staff. I am, however, at a loss as where you get the notion of spite or blinkering, I would suggest you need to look a bit closer to home to find those particular characteristics. At least Alan Fincher marshalled a sound and well argued counter challenge which contained explanatiory detail rather than an ill considered one liner, for which you have becom infamous.

You can only guess who took the picture of the three guys can't you..lol

David, I suppose the alternate view is that if you are trying to deal with an organisation where you have bent over backwards to reach accommodation, and that organisation effectively says to you "it's in the bag, as agreed, all we need to now is work out the fine detail", it is pretty disappointing when you tell people what has been agreed, only to find that CRT go away and mess with it, and then tell you it was never the final version in the first place. I have seen this happen repeatedly for the South East visitor mooring debate, and it seems that the same has happened with Roving Mooring Permits, (although my hands on involvement in that one is now far less). Of course you may then say "don't tell anybody anything, until you get the fully signed off version from CRT, then you will not be promising anything that doesn't happen". But that of course then lays any of us getting actively involved to the regular criticisms that we are off doing clandestine negotiations with CRT, and are not keeping people informed of progress, and are hence "not representative" or "not accountable". So if you keep people informed you can't win, but neither can you if you do not. In fact something like RMPs can only be done by keeping those who are affected in the loop, and regularly seeking their input. It would be pointless to forge a deal with CRT for RMPs at £50 per metre per year, for example, only to then find very few would be prepared to pay it, and hence you had not moved things on at all. Then of course if CRT end up demanding more........... It is a sad fact that whilst some in CRT seem very keen to embrace new better co-operative ways of working, there is a residual mindset with some that seem to hamper progress on just about every front, and keep snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. As I have said, what has gone wrong with RMPs is not all CRTs fault - certain "boating", (or even "caravanning"!) interests have tried to scupper it throughout. But words like "bugger about with" are actually very fair to aim at CRT, and as it has got to the point where you sometimes have to say it to their face, I can't actually see the objection to sharing it with the wider world. Perhaps if a few more people continue to tell Richard Parry to his face that things get needlessly killed off by "buggering about with" them he will be able to move more quickly in trying to engender in all his staff an understanding that it is not the way forward.

There was a thread on here about a year or so ago about this and it transpires no, they are not 'legal'. ISTR a CRT person contributing to the thread and they actually named someone in the office who would like to be notified of any of these signs seen, with contact details, and CRT will approach the owners and put them straight! MtB P.S. I am often sorely tempted to get out my thick black marker pen and black out the word "NO" on these signs. Maybe put a balancing black square after the word "MOORING" too

Yes it is definitely true to say that you very much get a different type of spiders in boats than you do in houses; the fat-bodied, pointy legged flecked garden spiders that tend to keep still, rather than the long-legged grey house tarantulas that suddenly run across the floor without warning.

The problem is easy to understand, if you consider that you're not actually paying the farmer for "access and water", but a "package" of services which include: 1) access to the small strip of land which the boat is moored against, from land 2) right of way along whatever path has been created 3) water (do you mean potable water from a tap provided)? 4) the long term rent of the small strip of land which is necessary to moor your boat against. Ie if you are there, then another boat cannot use it because your boat would block its path from the canal, so it has to be allocated to you only 5) the ability to park your car near to the small strip of land 6) possibly, the ability to store items along the bank near to the boat 7) security of the boat being moored bankside yet not accessible by the public, ie non-towpath side I appreciate that your circumstances mean that instead of 1-7, you now only require 4 and 7. However, the farmer has an opportunity cost, of being able to rent the mooring to someone else who wants 1-7, so he does not offer a "pick & mix" list of services to choose from. (Some mooring operators do, for example there's pitches with/without parking spaces, moorings where you can choose towpath/non-towpath side, moorings where electric hook up is provided or not etc). I'd suggest you seek an alternative, more basic, mooring, which might cost less, and provides less facilities but still enough for you to be happy (and also fulfil the "home mooring" requirement of the licence conditions you signed up for). Or, lift the boat from the water and store it on dry land for the time period you'll be away from it and not using it. This would also save the licence fee.

It's a pity really but 5 years ago with very little enforcement "London area" was pretty much self-managed by the boaters & it all worked reasonably well. Now with the amount of boats it doesn't seem to be a case anymore.

Seconded. This prevelant attitude on the forum certainly puts me off posting. I don't think I've ever used a forum where so many of the users are so keen nit-pick and criticise others for not communicating in the manner you wish them too. The reason that the forum is so stuffed with stuffy greyshirts that "normal" people have better things to do than come on here to be shredded for their incorrect (in your eyes) use of English. I use another forum on a completely different subject where this NEVER happens at all because the users are all tolerant. It has broad character unlike here and is a very friendly place to spend time. The race to standard greyness exhibited on this thread is typical and makes me sorry for you (you know who you are? probably not). A very good example is Tree. One person who adds something different and you can't take it. You describe her posts as baby language, hard to read, get sniffy, patronise her by describing her posting style as patois and even argue about how to spell that. Then you use this as justification to insult her because she won't conform despite your unforgiving and relentless criticisms. You don't even have the balls to name her as you snigger amongst yourselves like schoolchildren. The real world I live in is nothing like this. If anyone on here thinks that this forum in any way represents broad society you must be insane. I realise you'll all be along to prove me wrong with your clever well thought arguements, but that's exactly the point I'm making. OOOO someone stepped out of line - quick whip them into standard boring greyness like us. This post is not aimed at everyone on the forum, but a large % of the posts on this forum are attributable to a small unrepresentative group of people who would rather debate than discuss. Debating is about winning an arguement - it's what happens in posh schools and parliament. Discussion requires an open mind - something seemingly lacking on here. I do hope my post is stuffed full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. You can nit-pick instead of facing up to just how stifling you make it here.

I moor in a privately owned marina. The tarrif is set each year by the marina owners, and if I don't like the new price, then my only option is to leave and moor somewhere else. Getting "agressive" with marina staff on a single occasion would probably be enough for a boater to be thrown out, let alone doing this on a "regular" basis, as alleged in the BWML terination letter. I know that boaters have been invited to leave my present marina for various reasons, e.g. allowing their dogs to foul grassed areas and other anti-social behaviour. As far as I am aware, the marina management did not check on the state of their health first. It seems to me that C&RT's status as a charity is being used as a stick to beat them with. Their remit is to run a waterway, not to provide social housing.

That's a bit harsh, especially as you answered before any such questions arose Often the best way to find out what people think is to conceal your motive for asking, once people know the motives the views tend to polarise with the pros and antis coming forward. To assist further, perhaps I should clarify why I wasn't a member before. Throughout my professional career I've ended up advising on inland waterways, for a long time I felt that not being a member looked more impartial, and I am still at pains to point out to people that my ACTIVE membership is restricted to freight, where to be honest, who knows who and nepotism abound anyway (in the industry, not the IWA). There were one or two flash points where I didn't see eye to eye with them, and in the nineties one or two local authorities took the IWA advice on appointing consultants and ended up wishing they hadn't. However, with the likes of Vaughan Welch involved such problems have been removed. Even as a member I don't think they are above criticism. I'm chairman of the Somersetshire Coal canal Society, and I do wander what we get out of the IWA other than cheap insurance, but then we are in an area where the canal societies are arguably stronger than the IWA. I also question which nit though that the IWA endorsing the considerate boater website was a good idea. My views on that website are well known (I think the man who runs it is a pratt, and it shows) and my view os the IWA should develop it's own boaters code not latch onto someone else's flawed advice Also, how many societies that I'm not a member of would anyone wish me to explain away?

No problem - I work for IWA as their campaign and communications manager - I'm a boater my self, 49 YO inside leg 31 inches, married one child , over weight and I am interested to know why IWA polarises opinion so much - I wanted to ask 'real people' and preferably understand from non members what it is about IWA- what the real issues are and what you think we ought to be doing about it ... - I understand listening to people and trying to do something positive as a result doesnt happen much with most organisations these days. I want to try and do something about it - knowing your views might be a good start.