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Mike Todd

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Everything posted by Mike Todd

  1. Which canals have you been on? Where have you found that you can always guarantee to get your boat alongside the towpath, let alone the offside? Moat were built either U or V shaped.
  2. Let's hope that you are not disappointed
  3. Since the red diesel issue arose from competition rules and the open market, and almost all of business wants to keep that, it is highly likely that all such rules will continue by one means or another (after that is just what the so-call Great Repeal Bill does). The only difference will be that the companies and other bodies representing people affected (eg IWA et al) will have no say in how the rules are formulated. Progress? The latter is what happened for our recent new build (as I was told but did not actually witness)
  4. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  5. In any event, CaRT have few reasons to be involved (on the face of the evidence m'lud) other than via the hard pressed welfare officer or via the Waterways Chaplains. As Nigel M is keen to point out (on another thread) there are only three conditions (other than the T&C's!) for intervention just so long as the boat has the authority to be moored there longer term. (Tho whether some have BSS and insurance might be an interesting question but some seem to obtain these under quite extraordinary conditions!) Some of us (and I easily slip into such thoughts) are offended by boats (this is not a comment on the pictured boat necessarily) that are worse than the slums that were knocked down in the 1950's. What really brings me up sharp is when I then see that a family with children are living there. The housing situation, especially in the South East, is beyond any kind of moral compass - in my view. [Besides which, it is creating a scarcity of non-residential moorings anywhere near London . . .] You have a choice: either pass by with the thought that you are glad that you are not like them or you can ponder sympathetically on what life circumstances brought them to this context. Not all of us have the luxury of choice in these matters. Our new, shiny boat is no longer as shiny (below the gunnels) as it was three months ago and I fully expect a call from the tidiness police any day soon telling me that I need to apply more paint to cover the evidence that we actually use our boat - in real locks and mooring places, as well. And as for the way in which we fail to coil the mooring/handling ropes on the roof, well my dear it makes me weep.
  6. has a licence and insurance but not necessarily the licence and insurance (valid for the context)
  7. Also best to remember that the boat ahead of you is ahead of you and therefore has a better view (for the most part) than you do of the upcoming situation. On many stretches there is often no room to overtake safely, even with the co-operation of the slower boat. Sometimes the boat ahead may also have better knowledge of depth and hidden underwater conditions. Best to chill and, when it gets really bad, feel (and look) sanctimoniously superior!
  8. Next week we expect to go down through Bank Dole Lock on our way towards Selby. Will never forget going this in 1960's when controls on river pollution were not in existence and mills frequently put all sorts of 'stuff' into their discharges. As a result, many weirs ended up with a lot of froth. The lower gates at Bank Dole had been left open (I think that at the time they had a tendency to drift open but the lower landing was less than ideal) with the result that the lock chamber had been completely filled with what looked like brilliant white froth. We only had a tiny 20ft boat (as our starter!) and on coming back up there was no choice but to drive into the froth. What we quickly discovered was that, far from being really white, the froth carried a large amount of black particles which quickly covered the boat! Yuk . . . I doubt that it tasted like beer but I failed to sample it . . . Anyone who tries to tell me that regulations are uniformly 'a bad thing' has to contend with a re-telling of this incident!
  9. I think the rules have that one covered!
  10. Ta. You misunderstand. If the law permits T&Cs then they are therefore lawful even if not on the face of the act. Unless unreasonable.
  11. So we return to my earlier question (and Alan's similar one) about whether breach of T&C's - on its own - has even led to enforcement? More specifically in my question, whether anyone with a home mooring has been 'done' for not using their home mooring?
  12. It will change when you get towards submission date and viva, believe me!
  13. Not at all: they are (were) saying that the cost of a usage licence would be high and outweigh and gain of fairness. Cost-benefit trade-off. As with any cost factor, technology may well change the balance over time. Using the size of vessel is a low-cost way of addressing a perceived unfairness that small boats might be charged the same as a big one (as with Council Tax v Poll Tax, sorry Community Charge, if you are listening up there Mrs T!) Main thing is that as a parameter in licence collection it is very low cost to administer.
  14. Surely in this debate it is not what is 'required by law' that matters so much as what is 'permitted by law'. That is to say, if the law permits CaRT to create T&C's or other regulations (which at least in some circumstances is most definitely the case) then boaters must comply on pain of whatever penalty is prescribed, including loss of limitation of licence. Just to say that a particular requirement is not written on the face of the Act does not in itself make it not lawful. Do we know definitely that a court has ruled that under no circumstances may CaRT withhold a licence solely on the grounds that the boater has breached the T&C's? (ie rejecting CaRT's claim that they may)
  15. Finding a winter mooring anywhere near Bath may well make your mechanical problems look like a walk in the park. (unless you already have it fixed, of course)
  16. Restoring branch lines is a rose tinted glasses idea. Many of the lines were already dying as they were speculative developments trying to cash in on growth market. Sometimes they just got it wrong or found that the best routes were already taken. A lot of the tracks are no longer available as other things have been built over them (although that does not stop HS2!) Much the same as restoring some canals. Furthermore, the branch lines, where they worked, depended on people using their horse and cart to to 'the last mile', especially in rural areas, where the predominance of closed branch lines are. You would have to find ways of building large car parks alongside the stations (as has happened in some outer metropolitan places) Another fear would be that they would then accelerate the concentration of employment into dense city areas with more people having ever longer commutes, whether by rail or road. Where do you get the 30 years from? I thought that it was under 20.
  17. On what basis do you say that it will not then be needed? Are you suggesting that travel will decline, despite the sustained growth for a long time (like for ever!) in travel of all sorts? Or are you suggesting that we will find a way of utilising roads that is several times more efficient than now? Or are you positing an entirely new form of transport? (like teleportation) The difference between 'needed' and 'most cost effective' is important. For the balance to change significantly then there will have to be very large uplift in the relative cost of using HS2.
  18. My question asked whether they had been subject to such enforcement ie whether they had been given a formal notice to return to their home mooring? But I'm happy to widen it to anyone who has been subject to enforcement (by which I mean anything formal whether or not going as far as licence removal) for not meeting CC Roles whilst away from their home mooring. Both of these relate to someone holding a full Canal and River Licence.
  19. Sadly I can still remember when we first hired a boat - and had some less than interesting encounters with other boats whilst we were still figuring out how to make a boat go where you want it to rather than what it decides for itself. Even if that was 50 years ago . . .
  20. The description of now being homeless might need some qualification as it seems that she has been renting out for a while and not living on it permanently . . .
  21. I was aware that this was the case being referred to albeit tangentially. I really meant to qualify my question to relate to Standard Canal and River Licence rather than just a Rivers Only (PBC) which is a somewhat different kettle of fish. (Which really is why I was asking)
  22. Thanks. I'm not quite sure where you ended with that argument, however. Are you taking the view that the Board continue, as per the 1975 Act, to be entitled to set such conditions for the use of the canal as they deem appropriate? and that the later legislation specifically permits the setting of construction standards? both of which can be conditions to the issue of a PBC?
  23. We have had several times the suggestion that the T&C's are not law. Do the Acts provide for CaRT to make such T&C's? If so then they would as a result 'be law' even if not on the face of the Act. Increasingly, parliament seems to like making shorter laws with much of the detail settled by other means, such as SI. This does not mean that such deatil lacks the full force o the law. What is CaRT's own legal justification for making T&C's?
  24. (I know that was Phil's original statement not mayalid's but I messed up the citation and cannot find a better way to correct it!) Do we have any evidence that a 'pleasure boater' with a home mooring has ever been subject to such enforcement?
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