Gollywobbler

Hi Smelly So far, Shapps has not mentioned sea-going boats or the ones moored in Harbours rather than on the inland waterways. (However, like you I suspect that that may only be a matter of time.) For the minute, Shapps is saying that the majority of the population live within 5 miles of an inland waterway, hence he seems to want to start with the inland waterways. Apart from his patter about where people live at the moment, I think it is easier for a land-lubber like Shapps to 'see' the Inland Waterways as being a more manageable way to achieve whatever he is really trying to achieve. Every Harbour is controlled by its own Harbour Authority whereas the majority of the Inland Waterways are controlled by BW. Cheers Gill

Hi Sebrof I've not been further east than St Katharine Dock for about 20 years. When I lived in London in the 1980s, I used to go dinghy sailing in King George V Dock. (Which was so filthy that it inspired one not to capsize the sailing dinghy and get sent for a swim!) I think it was on the Isle of Dogs? Me and my mates went drinking at St Katharine Dock fairly frequently since most of us (including me) worked in the City and St Kats was a lovely place to go for a drink after work. There was a nice pub and somebody like the Cruising Association also had a licenced clubhouse in one of the buildings. They didn't seem to mind people gatecrashing their club bar! Why haven't they developed all of the docks by now, though? As you say, surely the docks would be excellent places for people to develop new residential moorings? I believe that the public transport links to the rest of London are pretty good nowadays? Who owns the as-yet undeveloped Docks, do you know? Many thanks Gill Hi Rob Thanks very much for this. Dan's (Smelly's) thread is here: http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=41001&st= I would have absolutely no objection if the Mods want to merge this thread into Smelly's thread and indeed I would not have started this thread if I had known about his. It would probably be a very good idea to merge the two, I reckon. Thanks again for telling me about it. Cheers Gill

Hello NB Alnwick Thanks very much for your welcome message the other day. I believe that on the inland waterways, not enough of the moorings are deemed to be "residential moorings" for everybody who currently lives on a boat to be able to find a residential mooring? If anything, I think this problem is even worse in the coastal Harbours but this forum is not the place to discuss those. Surely there is a need to "regularise" the legal positions with regard to moorings for the people who already live afloat permanently before worrying about trying to encourage even more people to do it? (Personally, I don't believe in the obsession with trying to control everybody by "regularising" everything but I've yet to meet a Government Official who does not believe in the idea for everyone except the Banks!) By the way, Political Correctness makes it almost impossible to avoid accusations of racism or some other type of discrimination. I think you have done remarkably well to avoid all the PC brickbats that I hope will be avoided by all other contributors to this thread as well, so thanks for setting an example. Cheers Gill

Hi Sir Nibble At the moment, the Housing Acts do cause a problem, I agree. However the Government say that their new legislative proposals (the Localism Bill and the National Planning Policy Framework) will together override any "objections" found in existing Planning legislation and the Housing Acts. I quite agree with you that trying to push groups of people (eg homeless persons) into living afloat is an idea that stands no chance of succeeding unless it is what the homeless person actually wants to do. It would also help if the homeless person has some experience of doing it, in my view. How many land-lubbers really understand that bottled gas on a boat is not the same thing as mains gas in a house, for example? Also, would a homeless person need some sort of Certificate of [personal] Competence if s/he were going to live on a boat on an inland waterway? This idea is not necessary in coastal Harbours but I think it might be on the inland waterways though I don't know for sure? Thanks Gill

Hi Wanted I can't control what the Moderators do but I hope to goodness that they will not merge the two threads. The other one got bogged down with bickering about issues that really had nothing to do with what was actually being proposed, I felt. I hope that this new thread will stick to the point. I think that the other thread would be very difficult for people to follow because so much of it is not relevant to the proposals, really. Cheers Gill

Hi Jim At the moment the suggestions from the Govt are extremely vague. They are making a jumble of different suggestions, I reckon. At the moment the inland waterways seem to be the main target but if the ideas work with those then they ought to work with Harbours as well, I suspect. I can help with some of your questions but not all of them. I think the answers are: I think there is an element of "housing subsidy" in that the Govt say they are willing to pay Local Authorities a New Homes Bonus every time the Local Authority grants planning permission for a new residential mooring. Apparently the New Homes Bonus is a cash bung from central govt. Central govt will pay the Local Authority the equivalent of 6 years' worth of council tax for each new residential mooring that the LA facilitate. This will just be a cash carrot to the Local Authorities, in effect. The Government will only pay the residential mooring fees if the occupant of the boat is on a low income with low savings and who therefore qualifies for Housing Benefit. The Government have added a couple of corollaries to this but I'm not sure whether the corollaries are really only red herrings. At the moment, the group at the top of the list for Social Housing are those who count as being "homeless." At the moment, a Local Authority cannot satisfy its statutory duty to house the homeless unless the LA provides suitable, *permanent* bricks & mortar accommodation ashore with mains water, mains electricity and mains drainage - without all 3, the proposed accommodation is not deemed to be "suitable" and the present legislation insists that nothing except bricks & mortar is even potentially "suitable" because no other type of accommodation is also *permanent.* The Govt say that they intend to relax the statutory provisions so that boats or caravans can, in some cases, be deemed to be "suitable accommodation" and presumably they intend to brush aside questions of *permanent* accommodation. Even Council Houses are not going to provide *permanent* accommodation for new tenants, after all. Central Govt want to say that it is. The Local Government Association seem to want to say that it isn't. No. The Govt has no intention of buying boats itself and it has no intention that Local Authorities should do so either. The idea is that if Smith can't afford to buy a boat of Smith's own but Bloggs (a private landlord) owns a boat that would provide "suitable" accommodation and he offers to rent the boat to Smith then Smith might be able to obtain Housing Benefit in order to help pay the mooring fees for the boat. Also, if Smith is homeless and the boat provides "suitable accommodation" then the Local Authority will have discharged its own duty of care to Smith if it recommends that he should live on the said boat, which Bloggs (the owner) has told the Local Authority about. My impression is that the Govt is only concerned with whether or not the boat would provide "suitable accommodation." If the boat can also move around under its own power, I suspect that this feature would be seen an irrelevant optional extra. I think this depends who you believe! Personally, I believe that the answer is "yes." However the Government aren't likely to talk their own idea down. The Housing Minister has never lived on a boat. I have. He claims that doing so can be an enriching, rewarding lifestyle. I think it can be - for some people but for someone who doesn't want to do it then the lifestyle would probably be a foretaste of hell. The Housing Minister says "Yes." British Waterways say, "Good." The Local Government Association are less sanguine because they don't think that the Local Authorities will necessarily grant Planning Permission for the extra residential moorings that would be needed in order to make any part of the idea work. Cheers Gill

Hi All I am pleased to see that the other thread about this topic has now been locked. With this new thread, please can we try to stick to the point? Thanks. It seems that the present Government is keen to encourage more people to consider living on boats, both on the inland waterways and in coastal harbours. ("More" - more than the number of people who do so at present, which the RBOA reckon is about 25,000 people at present if one counts all of the harbours and inland waterways.) To this end, the Government intends to relax all the existing regulations that tend to discourage the idea that people should live afloat permanently. How feasible is this idea, do we think, please? I've got a lot of comments to make as far living aboard boats in coastal harbours is concerned because I used to do that myself and so I know a fair amount about it from that point of view. However I don't know anything about the inland waterways apart from the fact that I've walked along a few towpaths, which is why I want to know what the members of this forum think about this idea, please. Please can we AVOID getting bogged down in bickering about which people might form this enlarged population of liveaboards. Let's try to stick with the principle only - the idea itself - in this thread, please. QUESTION: If you live on a boat on an inland waterway and you have a "residential mooring licence" to do so, what sort of protection does that afford to the licencee? Does it include some sort of security of tenure, for instance, or is it simply a temporary right in return for temporary fee, please? Thanks Gill

Hi Mrs M Yes, I am a "lumpy water boater" as you call it. I am also very well aware that this forum is about the canals - the name of the forum tends to give it away! I joined this forum partly because I would like to know more than I do about the canals and inland waterways generally - I'd love to have a go on a narrow boat but I've never had the chance to do so. Also, I know very little about the inland waterways beyond strolling along towpaths occasionally. My other reason for joining Canal World is because of the Government's recent utterings that more people should be encouraged to live on boats on the inland waterways. So far, there doesn't seem to be a suggestion that they should be encouraged to do so in Harbours as well. Most Harbour Masters would tell the Government to bunk off if they tried to interfere with how to run a Harbour, so I suspect that the Government imagines that the Inland Waterways are the "soft underbelly" in the piece. Also, I think it is probably the case that more people live near a canal than near a Harbour - I'm merely someone who has lived near the coast all my life and as far as I know, there aren't many (if any) canals near Southampton. This forum is very interesting for me because I'm learning the Inland Waterways jargon etc for the first time. Bruce Fraser was a journalist on the Daily Telegraph. He was friendly with Uffa Fox, who designed sailing dinghies. The marine companies used to send Bruce all manner of navigational widgets to try out (most of them far too complicated to bother with.) Bruce would turn up on a yacht armed with all these gadgets. He used to get terribly seasick,so he didn't really try out these gadgets anyway. They just cluttered up the chart table until they fell off that into the bilges and then at the end of the trip, Bruce would say crossly, "Where's my XYZ [gadget]? SOMEONE HAS STOLEN IT!!!!" Which was always complete nonsense because the useless article was always swimming in the boat's bilges somewhere! Cheers Gill

Hi Wanted Thanks for your reply. I'd never thought about the details of this before but I agree with you that there might be a problem. On the River Hamble, our boat was called Aquilon. She belonged to Jim alone and he was the licencee of the Crown Estate mooring. The mooring licence definitely said that he was not allowed to sub-let the mooring. I always took that to mean that Jim couldn't allow occupation of Aquilon's berth by another boat that did not belong to Jim. I reckoned that it would not constitute "sub-letting" as long as Jim owned the boat on the berth. Until I read your reply today, I'd never thought about how one construes the word "sub-let." Does it include taking rent off a third party and allowing that third party to have exclusive occupation of the boat on the berth? I suspect that marinas, especially, would be inclined to try to say that it does because I've never met a marina-owner who is slow to work out how he might make some money for himself! As I understand this, occasionally a homeless person might turn up on a Council's doorstep saying that Bloggs is willing to rent him a boat for him to live on as long as the Council will pay the rent to Bloggs. Apparently, at the moment the Council can't agree to pay the rent for a boat. The Government say that they plan to relax this in the Localism Bill so that the Council can pay the rent for any "suitable accommodation" - be it a boat, a caravan or whatever. I think the idea smacks of being an admission of defeat by the present Government. Why don't they just provide enough proper housing to keep everyone happy instead of casting around for ways to say that a cardboard box is "suitable accommodation?" It is possible to build at least a dozen houses for the same price as paying Civil Servants to invent silly schemes, it seems to me! Cheers Gill

I agree with you, Cotswoldman. I believe that if a Citizen of a country commits a crime in his/her own country, his/her country is stuck with him/her no matter how heinous the crime. I believe that a non-Citizen can be deported if s/he has committed a serious offence in the "new country" but where the UK is the "new country," that idea seems to have been rendered legless and toothless by the Yuman Rites Act

Hi Dominic M Since you have not told me your surname, I actually don't know who you are. Also, on forums there is a convention that the members can choose "user-names" if they wish. I choose to stick with "Gollywobbler" because I am known - internationally - as Gollywobbler, though not in connection with canal boats. Just Google Gollywobbler and you will find out, I expect. I feel a bit of a fraud, actually, because the late, great Bruce Fraser told me that a gollywobbler is a mizzen staysail on a schooner rigged vessel, so-called because they are difficult, shivery sails to fly. I've never even been on a schooner but I just like the name. (Bruce Fraser wrote "Weekend Navigator" and "At Home In Deep Waters." I consider myself very privileged to have known him personally and to have had him sail cross-channel aboard my boat more than once, plus of course I have copies of both of his books.) I don't believe that who I am and what I do or say has any relevance when I am not trying to make any money, surely? Cheers Gill

Hi Blackrat I understand that there is a shortage of residential moorings in the areas where your hypothetical young couple might choose to live? How is buying a boat going to solve that problem, please? Is this really only the perennial example of Civil Servants and Politicians failing to do that which most people call, "joined-up thinking?" Thanks Gill

Hi Wanted I believe that the current deal is that if the "housing provider" is not a recognised Housing Association or similar but is a Private Landlord, then the money for the rent is paid via the "pot" called 'Local Housing Allowance' rather than via the one called 'Housing Benefit.' I believe that either the Press don't understand the nuances properly themselves or that they are just trying to simplify things for their readers - I'm not sure which. I believe that the 'boat living idea' depends on the notion that the Local Authority will not provide the boat. I think the idea is that Private Landlord provides Boat and that Local Authority then say whether or not Boat offers 'suitable accommodation.' Who for? Presumably the otherwise 'homeless person." Personally, I think the whole idea is hopelessly simplistic. Living on a boat is easier said than done in my own experience of having been a liveaboard. Sure, it is possible to make the liveaboard idea work - I'm the living proof of that fact. However I think that doing it requires a certain mindset plus somebody (in my case my late husband Jim) knowing enough about boats to make the idea reasonably tolerable and safe. The question you ask is: Is there an issue with this, please? Thanks Gill

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/homeless-could-live-in-boats-and-caravans/6517540.article I have quoted the whole of the article published by Inside Housing yesterday. Please can we try to avoid getting bogged down with descriptions of stereotypes about what people imagine that a "homeless person" looks like? The things that concern me are:- 1. Sure, the intention is ONLY to let a homeless person live on a boat if that is what s/he actually wants to do. There is no suggestion that people who don't want to do it should be pushed towards living on boats. 2. However, would it give derelict boats a new (and somewhat dodgy) lease of life? Some minor, cosmetic tarting up can easily fool the boat-inexperienced and unwary, surely? 3. Even if the structurally dodgy vessels remained ashore rather than afloat, are there enough places ashore where they could be kept? Presumably there are not enough places on some of the inland waterways where boats could be kept afloat on permanent residential moorings? I'd be interested to know what other people think, please.

Hi Sue I agree with you completely but I used to work for the MCA (the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.) That was only a 2 year fixed term contract and it was my only experience of working for the Civil Service but it showed me quite a bit about the workings of the Civil Service because I suspect that all of the various Departments/Executive Agencies/Quangos work in the same way. Blunders that would get the Directors thrown out of the boardroom of any profit-making concern (apart from a Bank) are described as "learning opportunities" in the Civil Service. Those who purport to have "learned lessons" get hefty bonuses. The Civil Service is the only organisation I know of that provides its most senior people with massive rewards for making cock-ups. Cheers Gill

I agree with you that, in principle, what BW are saying is positive. However BW are also muttering that this "managed growth" that they are talking about will also result in significant price-hikes for the people who keep boats on the inland waterways. BW appear to think that the effects of the price increases can be mitigated via those who live on their boats permanently being able to claim Housing Benefit if necessary, to help with the mooring rental costs. Mmmmm. Pigs might fly, too! I suspect that some of the Local Authorities will be reluctant to pay Housing Benefit unless the berth itself is capable of attracting Council Tax.

A website called "Inside Housing" has torn Grant Shapps' living afloat idea to shreds this morning: http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/development/shapps-calls-for-boats-to-ease-housing-crisis/6517491.article For the people using dongles, I apologise for not copying the whole of the Inside Housing article but it is mostly only a re-hash of the BBC News article a couple of days ago. Apparently the "New Homes Bonus" is a scheme whereby the Government gives a Local Authority a cash bung of a sum equivalent to 6 years' worth of Council Tax for the new home. (Presumably this scheme does NOT provide a CT-free holiday for the occupier of the new home, though.) Attempted bribery is a criminal offence but when central Government is the culprit, the idea suddenly becomes an "acceptable incentive." One of the people who has commented on the Inside Housing article made me laugh out loud. S/he says that Grant Shapps does not have a "brain to mouth filter," so he just spouts whatever rubbish he has dreamt up overnight, it would seem. According to Inside Housing, the demand for new homes is that 60,000 new homes are required every quarter. It would take at least a year to secure planning permission for even 600 new residential moorings on the inland waterways so I really do think that Shapps is spouting out of his rear end. Somehow, it seems that Shapps' ideas for "uncoventional housing" seem to be attracting universal derision but zero support. Sad, that.

I did some delving into this during the weekend just gone. I do not claim to be an expert on this subject, though. As far as I can gather, some of the inland waterways are controlled by British Waterways whilst others are controlled by the Environment Agency. BW and EA are both quangos that receive money from and are answerable to DEFRA. When the Coalition announced its plans to get rid of quangos, BW was targeted for the axe but the EA was not. The reason for treating the two quangos differently seems to be that BW has been losing £30 million a year whereas the EA has not been losing comparable amounts. BW have been saying for years that the same body should control ALL of the inland waterways. For some reason that I don't understand, DEFRA and the Government seem to be resistant to that idea. I suspect that the reason could be that DEFRA don't want the EA to get saddled with the losses from BW's assets. It seems to have been decided that BW's assets will all be transferred into a "New Waterways Charity" during 2012. (NWC is just a working name and DEFRA have requested some less inelegant suggestions! The RBOA - very sensibly, in my view - have suggested the "British Waterways Trust" or something similar, so that the NWC would not need to alter any of its signage or literature. If the NWC is called the BWT then its "public name" could just continue to be "British Waterways.") This NWC thing is intended to be "owned" by several different "stakeholders" as far as I can gather. Local Authorities will be invited to become part-owners of the NWC, for example. All of which doesn't sound too bad so far but I suspect that the door has deliberately been left open so that Mammon can also become a Trustee of the NWC. I have an uneasy feeling that the Government would welcome private investment in the NWC and that, if the price is high enough, they will actually sell control of BW's assets to private enterprise. Mammon would not want a bunch of bureaucrats trying to tell him how to spend his own money, so I can see that the IWAC would become redundant in the new NWC proposals. I'm suspicious about what this present Government is up to with the inland waterways, frankly.

Morning All The quote above comes from a BBC News article this morning, which is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14708841 I would suggest that somebody who relies on a dongle need not necessarily bother to read the whole article because all the arguments in it have already been made dozens of times before so there's nothing new going on as far as the housing shortage is concerned. However it does seem to me that Grant Shapps has just been trying to buy himself some wriggle room over the report released by the NHF this morning. By encouraging BW's idea of trying to increase the number of permanent residential moorings in certain areas, presumably Shapps imagines that he can deflect some of the criticisms of him by the NHF and the LGA. The LGA have already made it clear that they are having none of it as far as Shapps' efforts to dangle boat-carrots in front of them are concerned. The NHF will probably produce a similarly scathing reaction to the suggestion that encouraging people to live afloat will actually have any significant impact on the housing shortage. Clearly it won't. Shapps is the Minister for Housing and Local Government. He is not the Minister for Boating and Inland Waterways. I suspect that DEFRA will tell him to get off their patch. Cheers Gill

Yes, you are right. This is exactly what the LHA Dispute is about. The Government are convinced that by putting a cap on the amount of rent they are prepared to pay a private landlord by way of LHA, they will be able to drive private rents downwards. However the Government's critics say that applying this very low cap to LHA payments in London will have the effect of driving low-paid key workers out of London completely. Who is going to sweep the streets if that happens? Grant Shapps appears to think that perhaps he has found a way to keep everyone happy! If the street sweepers refuse to pay more than LHA will pay towards the rent that a private landlord demands for bricks & mortar accommodation ashore, the street sweeper might still be willing to stay in London by moving onto a boat, as far as I can gather. To which Utopian end, Shapps seems to want to try to dangle carrots in front of the Local Authorities. If they will provide more residential moorings, he will pay them a New Homes Bonus per mooring, it seems. The Local Authority would be able to charge the street sweeper Council Tax and all, according to Shapps. If the Local Authority controls the new residential mooring and ensures that it is rented only to the street sweeper who has a boat, the street sweeper might even be able to claim Housing Benefit towards the cost of the new residential mooring fees, apparently. People in Whitehall get paid a lot of money for coming up with loopy theories like this one for their Ministers to rabbit about, it seems to me!

I agree with you. I particularly agree with your fears. It seems to me that Shapps has a completely romantic but totally unrealistic "vision" of life for the people who might choose to live afloat. Such people might keep themselves busy by making rope or wicker fenders, or the artistically-minded amongst them might wish to get good at the traditional types of decorative painting that one sees on canal boats or canal-ware, according to him! I wonder what else he imagines might go on in that place called Utopia?

Hi Blackrose I agree 100% with your final statement. I suspect that the problem you might face in claiming any sort of Benefits is the fact that you live on a boat. Some Local Authorities would give you at least partial Housing Benefit for some of the costs involved in preventing you from having to sleep in accommodation ashore, financed by the LA. However, another Local Authority 10 miles away will say that it is not their Policy to pay Housing Benefit to anyone who lives on a boat, regardless of the boat-dweller's circumstances. So which way the Local Authority responsible for the area where your boat is moored would jump if you approached them depends more on them and their Policies than it depends on you and your particular circumstances. My only experience of this is the Hamble and Itchen Rivers, both of which are Harbours, not inland waterways. All of the parts of the Itchen where a boat might be allowed to moor are controlled by Southampton City Council. I am told that SCC refuse to pay any HB to people who live on boats moored on the Itchen. When I asked why, I was told that SCC consider that a boat might be moved to another area, controlled by a different Local Authority. I pointed out that the Southampton Harbour Master would have 50 fits if some of the liveaboard boats moored on the Itchen were allowed to move! Some of them are unseaworthy wrecks according to him and he is convinced that some of them would sink in his fairway if they moved an inch, never mind tried to move out of the Itchen! I was met by a blank stare from the SCC Official. She knew nothing about what the Harbour Master might say about her Council's theory that a boat might move and it was not SCC's Policy to find out what the Harbour Master in their own area might think, I gathered! The Western side of the River Hamble is controlled by Eastleigh Borough Council. The Eastern side is controlled by Fareham Borough Council. As far as I know, both of them are willing to pay a boat-dweller's mooring fees in full if he is on a low income and does not have more than £x in savings. Neither of these two Councils seem to be concerned about the notion that a boat might move out of their area. From the amount that you say you are paid, I would suggest that it would be worth approaching the local authority responsible for the area where you moor (and therefore live.) I would suggest keeping it as simple as possible. Thus, you don't "moor" anywhere. Rather, you "live" in XYZ place. What sort of accommodation do you live in, they will ask? Errrm. A boat, as a matter of fact. "IN XYZ PLACE," like you just said! XYZ place is within their area, like you also just said. I would suggest keeping the conversation away from whether or not the boat has an independent means of propulsion because most Local Authority Officials won't think to ask you that question and there is no point in confusing them unnecessarily, in my view. Watch out for Council Tax Benefit, too. Most boat-owners don't have to pay any CT per se but what they do have to pay, via their mooring fees, is a percentage of the Business Rates that their moorings landlord has to pay. So it is worth finding out from your Landlord what the story is about that, so that you will know how to answer the Housing Benefit Officials at your Local Authority. Cheers Gill PS - don't confuse them with a discussion about different types of mooring licence, either. From the Official's point of view, the ONLY question is whether you pay your "rent" (sic - rent) to an identifiable third party landlord. If yes, then you may be entitled to LHA (Local Housing Allowance) rather than Housing Benefit but which financial "pot" the payment comes out of does not matter to you. As far as the Official is concerned, a mooring licence is a type of Rent Agreement. Leave it firmly at that, I suggest. The Official will only get muddled if you try to go into too much detail - which really isn't fair on the Official, it seems to me.... Then you will get daft questions. Are you the sole occupier of this boat? If yes, how many bedrooms does this boat of yours possess? Just do your best, hon! The Official wants to think of your boat as being the same as a flat. Make it easy for the Official to believe whatever s/he likes, I suggest.

Mmmmmm! I suspect that Grant the Gaffe might have had another go at trying the idea that if he opens his mouth widely enough he might be able to get both feet into it at the same time. Grant Shapps is the Minister for Housing and Local Government according to Wiki. (He is also one of Call Me Dave's cronies, so Wiki suggests.) British Waterways is a quango that takes its orders from DEFRA. The same goes for the Environment Agency. Neither of these two quangos has anything to do with Grant Shapps and neither of them is answerable to him. My impression is that Shapps doesn't know what he is talking about - as usual. If he thinks that the chronic shortage of housing can be solved by encouraging people to live on boats instead, he is dreaming - as the Local Government Association have now told him, in a direct response by the LGA to the spoutings by Shapps that were published by the Beeb and in various newspapers on 27th August 2011. The LGA have told him in no uncertain terms that local councils need money to spend on the provision of Council Homes that are fit for the 21st century. Shapps and his dreams of people living on boats just will NOT cut the mustard according to the LGA. Woof, woof but I agree with the LGA, as it happens. I suspect that Shapps will now quietly ditch his idiotic utterings on this subject. He's in Biiiiig Trouble, especially around London, for his ideas of trying to limit the amount that local authorities could pay out in Local Housing Allowance. I suspect he's seized on an entirely different proposal being mooted by British Waterways in the hope that the BW proposals will somehow get him out of trouble. They won't and I think the LGA are right to tell him so, quickly, the better to nip his nonsense firmly in the bud. British Waterways are trying to suggest solutions to the problems of overcrowding, especially on their waterways around London. http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/listening-to-you/consultations-and-reviews/current-consultations I suspect that Shapps imagines that he is helping DEFRA as well as helping himself, but he'd do a lot better to mind his own business and take his feet out of his mouth, methinks! Cheers Gill

Hello Everyone I have joined this forum specifically because I am interested in the Government's new proposal about "houseboats on inland waterways" as far as I can gather from the BBC's article and various other sources that I've tracked down via Google today. I've never lived on a "houseboat" (that is - a boat without an independent means of propulsion.) I've also never lived on an inland waterway. However I have lived on a boat (1995-2002) on the River Hamble, near Southampton, whilst my late husband Jim was alive. The Hamble is a fully tidal, fully navigable Harbour and it is classified as a Harbour rather than as anything else. I suppose that, technically, Jim and I were "liveaboards" rather than "houseboat dwellers" because both of Jim's boats had engines that worked and we regularly took one or other of them cruising across to France, the Channel Islands, the West Country and so forth. Grant Shapps' proposal INTRIGUES me because it seems to be a complete reversal of all the "social mores" that developed credence during the second half of the 1990s and later. Whilst I was a liveaboard, there was a strong Establishment belief that anybody who lived on a boat was nothing but a "water-gypsy" who relied on a keel instead of 4 wheels. According to the Establishment, us water-gypsies were invariably filthy because allegedly we failed to wash either ourselves or our clothes regularly or adequately (total factual nonsense, both claims)and the boats were automatically deemed to be Unfit for Human Habitation because the boats didn't comply with modern Building Regulations as far as I could gather. Living on a boat was a guaranteed shortcut to Social Housing ashore, frankly! Central Government enthusiastically endorsed all of the completely fallacious theories held by the Establishment in many different places. Water Gypsies were a Very Bad Thing, right up there with the Travellers and so forth! If anything, the Water Gypsies were Worse because the perception was that we were considered to be a very rebellious bunch, all huddled in boat-ghettos on a collection of ramshackle and unseaworthy vessels and the long & short was that the Establishment did not like the view from the Yacht Club balcony even if our opponents didn't actually manage to catch fleas... Now, suddenly, the millionaires running the Central Government want to enthuse about everything they have always professed to despise, it would seem... Why is that, one asks oneself cynically? Cheers Gill