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Higgs

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Posts posted by Higgs

  1. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted

    10 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

    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.

     

    Tell me which weeks your mooring is free, I'll be wanting to use it, to be able to use your transferrable logic mooring scheme.

     

     

  2. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted · Edited by Higgs

    4 minutes ago, Paul C said:

     

    No. No.

     

    For further details on what I have said, please refer above to my recent posts.

     

    I was with you, when you alluded to necessary transit moorings being a part and parcel of navigation. I don't really see mooring as an extra. If it was within the small print of legislation, I'm sure in would have been included, at the time of CCing becoming a right.

     

     

  5. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, MtB said:

     

    Interesting point. This is the "elephant in the room" isn't it?

     

    Any opposition to CRT charging for general towpath mooring (whatever the length of stay) could end up bring under examination the overall legality of living aboard at all (except perhaps, on a resi mooring).

     

    It is after all, not allowed without approval of "the Board" under the General Canal Byelaws 1965

     

    30. No vessel on any canal shall without the permission of the Board

    be used as a club, shop, store, workshop, dwelling or houseboat.

     

     

    So, don't forget to go home, somewhere that isn't your boat, when you've moored up? 

     

     

     

     

  8. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, Paul C said:

    It would be useful for us both (all) to agree on what we're discussing. "CMing" is a colloquial term, not a fixed/defined thing. So I'd like you to say what YOU mean by it, before I offer any opinion on it. 

     

    You must be the only member of the forum to be ignorant of what CMing means. You can do it - write it out in long hand.

     

     

  14. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted · Edited by Higgs

    4 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

    Indeed they have, but only the T&Cs that are lawful can be applied, C&RT can request compliance with other T&Cs but at the end of the day C&RT do not any authority to write new laws'.

     

    Oh, really? It seems they can circumvent the law, in marinas.

     

     

     

     

    2 minutes ago, Paul C said:

    It was a multiple choice question but you have made up your own option (5).

     

    Was it? 

     

     

  15. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted

    Just now, Paul C said:

    What is "code"? Specifically, can you use the proper phraseology, if you mean one of the following:

     

    1) Legislation

    2) Byelaws

    3) Terms and conditions of a boating licence

    4) CRT Boater's Handbook (please say which section you are referring to)

     

     

    No CMing. And, knowing that a permanent mooring is what a home moorer pays for. It offers no discounting on use of the canal.

     

     

  19. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted · Edited by Higgs

    6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

    The comment was in regard to moorings, not licence fees.

     

     

    I obviously should have misread it. Would you not like to try and scotch the idea that home moorers might be able to CM?

     

    "For boats with home moorings when cruising away from those, the 14 day limit would apply only as a permissive one based on a fair-play comparison with the ‘continuous cruisers’. It is simply, in other words, that CaRT would find difficulty in justifying the application of differing standards based only on the nature of the boat licence application."

     

     

  20. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

    For boats with home moorings when cruising away from those, the 14 day limit would apply only as a permissive one based on a fair-play comparison with the ‘continuous cruisers’. It is simply, in other words, that CaRT would find difficulty in justifying the application of differing standards based only on the nature of the boat licence application.

     

    That's obviously gone out the window.

     

     

     

  21. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted · Edited by Higgs

    19 minutes ago, David Mack said:

    As a matter of law that is incorrect. Under the 95 Act, those without a home mooring are required to not remain in any place for more than 14 days (or such longer period...). There is no such constraint under the Act for those with a home mooring. However CRT (and BW before them) have sought to impose a similar requirement on those with a home mooring through their terms and conditions. The enforceability of this requirement has been questioned here, but as far as I am aware has never been tested in court, so it's a moot point as to whether a home moorer can legally stay longer than 14 days in one place.

     

    You seem to be saying: Home moorers have to behave as CCers. They can't stay moored for longer than 14 days. They can slip back into the marina, and possibly get the count to start again. They are also required to leave VMs, as the time states.

     

    Would you, by any chance, be trying to find rules that home moorers can follow, that CCers are not permitted to follow? Like, CMing, for instance?

     

     

     

     

  22. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted

    Just now, MtB said:

     

     

    You clearly still have only the haziest grasp of the differences in the rights and responsibilities of home moorers and CCers.

     

    I've been both. And a home moorer for the much longer period. I paid for a mooring in one instance, and decide, perfectly reasonably, to be a CC'er in the other. As a CC'er, I have a fortnight limitation of mooring, in the other, I didn't. 

     

     

  23. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Arthur Marshall said:

    That last sentence makes no sense whatsoever..

    I will point out again that it doesn't matter to CRT what bit of the Macc that I choose to moor on (a bit like it doesn't matter where a CCer moors), or which farmer I pay for my mooring (or how much), I have to pay the same additional fee to CRT. It's not tied to a particular place at all - I paid the same when I moored on the Shroppie.

    The difference, of course, is that it can be adjusted for circumstance, so if I wanted to hang about in a popular spot like London, the CRT fee would be higher. For a CCer, this isn't the case, they now get the same small surcharge everywhere. This is logical for the ones that move round the system, but for the majority that don't I suspect further changes may be in the pipeline.

    The point is that everyone moors, but only some pay a fee to do so. That fee has nothing to do with the rent paid to the landlord.

    The law was written to be fair to those who wanted to cruise the system. It wasn't intended to cope with those who wanted to stay in a small area for whatever valid reason. That's the trouble with the law, which is inflexible, and the society it controls, which can change rapidly. Luckiky, CRT have found a way round it, following the example of those who have, themselves, found a way round the intention of the law.

     

    You're still telling me that you have a right to moor in a place of your choosing for more than a fortnight. And that is why you pay.

     

     

  24. A broad view of canal boat licence fees (The other side)

    in General Boating

    Posted · Edited by Higgs

    14 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

     

    Surely CCers cannot just use the canal 'as they wish', they have to abide by rules and conditions that HMers do not.

     

    The rule that was created that didn't require a CCer to have a home mooring, or anyone, for that matter.

     

    When home moorers are out and about on the canal, the rules are the same for them as CCers. When I went on holiday and was away from the boat for a month, I put the boat in a marina, and took a home mooring to do it. It allowed me a permanent mooring for more than a fortnight. As it does for all home moorers.

     

     

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