Arthur Marshall

As Tony can't answer his critics on here, I hope no-one minds if I post the following, which is his explanation of what has happened and why he thinks it important to battle on. My personal opinion is that if he stuck to logic and argument, and cut out the intemperate and abusive language (and most of the adjectives), CRT and the courts would take him more seriously as opposed to think he's just ranting on. Once someone calls you a "despicable bastard" you tend to write them off as a anyone capable of serious discussion. One of my problems with it all is that, having worked for HMRC for thirty years, I really can't see how a blatant VAT irregularity could have carried on for 20 years - unlike a lot of tax work, VAT has always been handled by experts in the department. Anyway, over to Tony: "...here's a brief summary of the action C&RT have taken to augment the boat registration and VAT accounting mess they inherited from their predecessors. If anyone would like to quote or use all or any of the following for re-posting on CWDF, please feel free so to do : Genuine boat Licences issued by C&RT should and do have VAT charged on top of the licence fee at the standard 20% rate. The Pleasure Boat [registration] Certificates, which C&RT dishonestly issue as 'Rivers Only Licences' are 0% rated for VAT, and are, under Sections 5(1) and 6(1)[c] of the 1971 BW Act, mandatory for the owners of boats kept and used only on 'river waterways' to hold, and mandatory for C&RT to issue. C&RT, however, have dug themselves into something of a hole by continuing dishonestly to describe the Pleasure Boat [registration] Certificate as a Rivers Only Licence because by so doing since they (C&RT) came into existence in 2012 they have left themselves obliged under the VAT regulations to continue to collect the current standard rate of VAT on a registration certificate for which the fee is 0% VAT rated. Were they now to discontinue charging VAT at 20% on their phony 'Rivers Only Licences' they would be landing themselves with the massive problem of having to clear up the accounting nightmare created by a total of over 20 years of knowing deception and fraudulent VAT collection, first by BWB and latterly by themselves, and then explaining away the whole mess to HMRC ! A fringe benefit for C&RT, and their predecessors BWB, from charging standard rate [Licence] VAT on 0% VAT rated Pleasure Boat (registration) Certificates has been that it has helped to lend credence to their lies about the Pleasure Boat Certificate really being a 'Licence', . . lies which they have chosen to perpetuate in order to foster the illusion that they have statutory powers to 'licence' the use of 'river waterways' in the same way they 'licence' the use of the man made canals under their control and upon which the statutory PRN was extinguished under the 1968 Transport Act. Over the last 20(+) years these illusory river 'licensing' powers have been, and are still, routinely bowled up to the Courts to justify the habitual exercising of the disproportionately draconian Section 8 removal powers in respect of non-sunk, non-stranded, and non-abandoned boats on the river waterways where the 'lawful authority' to keep and use a vessel on the waterway is and always has been derived from the common law public right of navigation, and is not a power in the gift of the C&RT to grant or refuse by way of any form of 'Licence'. The lawful authority to keep and use a pleasure boat on the river waterways listed in Schedule 1 to the 1971 BW Act [as amended] is the common law Public Right of Navigation (the PRN), and, much as C&RT would wish everyone to believe otherwise, not some phony so-called 'Rivers Only Licence', conspicuous only by it's complete absence from any part, section, or chapter of any the related waterway legislation by which C&RT is governed, . . but routinely issued nonetheless by this malevolent and megalomania ridden navigation authority with a taste for stealing people's boats from them under the guise of action supposedly intended to "manage, conserve and keep the waterways safe", . . the weasel words with which the despicable bastards at C&RT generally round off the written evidence placed before the Courts for the purpose of obtaining Injunction Orders. "

I think because you can't post PDFs on here.

Thanks for the clarification as always. I misunderstood the basic meaning of the PRN, I think.

What it comes down to is that going to court is an exceedingly dodgy way to decide anything, especially if you are trying to prove a point of law, or have some daft idea that justice matters to anyone apart from yourself. If so, he aint the only one!

You could always drop the hair and count the angels dancing on the pin?

Must admit I quite miss Tony's take on things, which is why I nip over to the other forum every now and then though never bothered to join it. He does have a wealth of knowledge and can be enormously helpful, as well as on occasion being a serious pain in the wotsit. I could never understand why he wasn't from Yorkshire.

Thanks Alan. So, again presumably, the only reason Tony was refusing to buy the rivers only licence was because of the VAT issue. Which I would have thought would be an argument with IRC rather than CRT. And which is another organisation that suffers from poor management.

So what does registering your boat get you, as opposed to licensing it? Is the implication that if there's a PRN, a licence is not required? Are some rivers treated differently from others? This has been rambling on for years, and I've never got anyone to explain it terms an idiot like myself can understand.

I understand he is currently bankrupt. Whether this affect anything I have no idea.

His argument, as I understand it, is that he doesn't want a licence, he wants a registration. CRT say they are the same thing, he says they aren't. A licence gives you the right to use the boat on the river, the registration just, presumably, allows it to be there. There's a difference in vat liability too which also seems to be part of his argument, which is too esoteric for me. I've never understood what the purpose of "registration" is if you then can't use the boat, but I suspect Tony does, as will Nigel. It's not relevant to me as I'm strictly nontidal.

No it isn't, under the right circumstances. I could just as well say that riding the gate is foolish, because I think it is. Enough people disagree and do it safely. I don't, because I'm not comfortable with the lack of control. These things are a matter of how well you know your boat, locks and what you're doing - you can rarely generalise and say something is always right or wrong (apart from the fact that pump outs are inferior to chuckits, bow thrusters are for wimps, fat boats are ugly and trombones are better than banjos).

If you're singlehanding, you are always a bit aware that you are slower (if not by much if you're any good at it) than the crewed boat behind you. So there's a bit of pressure to get on along a flight as quick as you can. Nice as people are you can see their faces drop when they realise you're on your own. So in those cases I tend to be happy to leave the boat to drop the last few feet (once it's well past the cill) and set the next lock. That being said, I seem to be as quick as a crewed boat, but I have followed some singlehanders who drove me demented by the sheer slowness and inefficiency of how they worked locks.

Had a helpful one on the Bosley flight last week. two walking up the locks, saw me coming down, opened a paddle and the gates. Mind you, then they carried on walking back to the top where the tea is (and the other two lockies), leaving me to do the next six on my own...

I've never done it, always drained the other one, but have always wondered... The Caldon one is the only other one I know like that.

The staircase at Bunbury has chambers of different sizes, and once the bottom lock fills the excess water from the top lock goes through a whacking great slot into the basin. So I've always wondered if there was any point in draining the bottom lock - why not just empty the top lock as you go down through the slot? Would that not save a lockful?

Two lock staircase wouldn't be set like that, surely, unless the bottom lock leaks like hell. If a boat's gone up, both are full and vice versa. You always have to set one lock, whichever way you're going. So, it would be the boat that got there first and set the locks! Different with wide locks as boats can pass in different directions.

I will leave the boat if it's halfway down, tied up and not drifting about. And if the next lock is very close and there's no possibility of someone coming the other way. So, not very often. Bosley and Audlem possibly. Certainly not to check if there's mooring space.

My boat can drift anywhere going down. A lot of "central" bollards aren't really central and the boat can be drawn forward, bounce at the end of the rope and drift back too far.

No vlockies at Whartons, ever!

I went past an abandoned orchard a year or two back. Great pickings. There's a plum tree somewhere on the towpath on the Shroppie, too...

And never trust an automatic pump. I've always had one, reputable makes, as I don't live on, and every one has failed in a crisis.