Arthur Marshall

I have no complaints. That's the only argument that's valid. All the rest is self-interested tosh. Fun though.

Probably, unless you pay EOG, which is about 80% of licence fee and sometimes more. But as you say, it's nothing to do with an argument for a surcharge, just a fact to be taken into account. Who pays what and whether it's "fair" is a bit daft, if Higgsish. CRT needs more money and they have to milk the beasts they think can afford to stump up a bit more, rather than driving ones who can't off the pond and losing their contributions entirely. It's just pragmatism. If they lose a few NBTA boats who they have to endlessly spend money on, chasing them for fees and compliance, they won't worry much.

Here's another case. I have a friend who (genuinely) cruises virtually all year, but has retained his EOG farm mooring for when he needs medical treatment. So as long as he's not there for more than a couple of weeks at a time, which he isn't, although he has a contract for a permanent home mooring, my assumption is that he can declare as CC, saving himself about a grand, as it's no business of CRTs what the farmer does with the mooring, which, obviously, is usually vacant. Its a sort of reversal of the ghost mooring theory... the advantage now goes the other way.

I know it's pointless trying to educate you, but when I started boating there were no BW mooring fees, there were boats that cruised continuously and there were boats with home moorings for which they paid no fees to BW. And no home mooring requirement. It's been pointless debating with you since you were whinging about licences in marinas. I shan't respond again. PS ghost moorings were a myth.

Well, bugger me.it may not be acceptable to you that I pay 1100 quid licence to CRT and 900 mooring fees to CRT (for a non CRT mooring), but that's because you're an idiot. I'm quite glad it's acceptable to CRT. Continuous cruising is a choice that none are forced to make. I find it unacceptable that you* contribute so much less to the management of the waterways you use than I do, while, of course, using them more (if, indeed, you do). *this refers purely to Higgs and no other continuous cruiser. Wrong. there weren't .

I do wish you'd look stuff up before you talk nonsense. I paid no mooring fees to BW when I started boating, then all of a sudden I did. However, as you've never accepted any facts that you don't like, don't bother to reply. And boaters haven't ever tried to screw each other, if you haven't noticed, this is a CRT decision.

More than it looks for most of us though, as there were no mooring fees then. They almost doubled boating costs when they came in, though not for CCers, obviously. The endless reiteration that mooring costs are irrelevant to any discussion is a bit irritating. If licence costs had just been raised universally to incorporate a factor for mooring, the current arguments could have been totally avoided.

I reckon I get what I'm paying for - good mooring on a lovely canal with the occasional grumble about not being able to get where I want, but that's the nature of an ancient system. It's been worth every penny for the past thirty years, even though it's always been at the limit of what I could afford. It'll be a tragedy if our governments (of whatever hue) decide it's not worth keeping, but they seem to generally regard anything that doesn't make either landlords, bankers or foreign states richer as a waste of time.

I remember one bloke tying his boat firmly to the bottom of the ladder in the bottom staircase at Chester, starting to fill from the middle lock while walking up to fill the top lock. By the time he got back...

I find that works fine till the boat gets about halfway up, then it swings and clunk. Curse of a short boat, I suspect.

Nope, I contribute more to CRT than a CCer does, doesn't matter what for. You can't be on the water without mooring somewhere, so it's not a separate matter at all. Ccers just rip CRT off by not paying anything to moor, wrecking the towpath with pins or bending the piling. So either I get priority or the argument, as I say, is nonsense. As is my third sentence, before someone takes it seriously... Everyone has a valid reason for being afloat, and none are more important than any other.

It'll still swing about even if you tie it up, depending on the length of the boat. My 40 footer is virtually uncontrollable in the lock if there's no one on the boat. Doesn't seem to do it any harm.

Then I should, as a home moorer, because I pay twice as much to CRT as a CCer. The argument is nonsensical. Luckily, nobody cares what we think. It's the job of the owner to set what it considers a fair price, and that of the user to decide whether it's worth it or not. And it's the job of the government to decide where tax money gets spent, and the job of the public to vote in one that does it the way they think best. Which is what it's done consistently for the past dozen years, saying clearly it doesn't want public money spent on services, culture or fripperies like a navigation.

Definitely not open 3rd April. Hey ho.

If license costs reflected the cost of running the system, there would be no boats and no system. If the thing is supposed to be a resource for the general public, walkers, cyclists, fishermen, leisure boaters, hirers,, then it should be publicly funded. It's not been a commercial waterway for a century. Bit like the water industry, really. Trying to run it is a private concern when it's meant to be a utility is to guarantee failure. It can't be both.

According to CRT email, not open yet. Will find out for definite later.

Just been told by a CRT guy that these are now open, if squalid! Anyone know more? As an aside, just had to revise my opinion of Bosley vlockies, two helped us all the way up, having first asked if we wanted them to and then checking with whoever was on the boat before opening paddles, every time. In the rain, too.

Unfortunately, you've been dragged into the clobbering for higher costs, as have a fair few others, because so many have successfully bent both the original spirit and the letter of the rules. If they hadn't, and had paid their way properly, all this need never have happened. Much the same has happened to anyone who wants to live somehow outside what our betters think is a normal lifestyle focused largely on the acquisition of more and more money. Just because something is less costly in some respects is not an argument for making it more expensive, it's a perfectly valid choice. A single, universal licence, including an amount to cover what CRT see currently as separate mooring fees, would solve the whole problem and cut down their office costs to boot. CCers benefit the system in many ways, and I think most of us home moorers are aware of this, though I suppose those that just sit in marinas and rarely move out may not be.

I'm going to drive from home in Brighton to Edinburgh. Mind you, I'm going to stop for a week in London, then go to Cardiff for a fortnight . Then I'm going to stay with friends in York for a week and drive up to Durham, where I'll take a few days visiting the cathedral. After that , I'll take the train back to Brighton for a week to see my son, then get one back to Durham, pick the car up and go to Edinburgh. Now, if someone can explain how that's a single continuous drive, I might think some of the arguments above aren't total nonsense. And, oddly, saying "lots of peopls do it" is a statement, not an argument! And now I really must put the fiddle in the car...

Exactly. Our opinions differ - such is the nature of opinion. Mine is that that cannot in any way be seen as a continuous cruise. Largely because it isn't continous, it's continually inerrupted. Of course there are. It's why they are now being surcharged. PS had enough of this now - been rehashed so often with entrenched views it's pointless. Badly drawn up laws get interpreted by each individual to their own advantage, quite rightly. I'm off to play the fiddle.

Post leaked from the political ghetto!

Can't say I care what the Act says, as nobody else seems to, including a fair sprinkling of judges. And I said "should ", as that was very obviously the point of the concession in the first place - it wasn't that a large number of well off people could duck out of paying for using their toy. Nor, of course, was it to open the door to the system being a source of cheap housing, but that was the result of intentional increase in the cost of, and decrease in the availability of, rental property. I'm a lot more sympathetic to the latter than I am the former.

Synchronistic infandibulum, I think, invented by Vonnegut. The one point in the universe where two entirely incompatible facts can both be true at the same time.

Would cost more in bureaucracy than it would bring in, especially as just about all of it would end up being paid by the benefit system one way or another. CC licences should only be granted to those who actually live on board for the duration of the licence. Anything else is daft. The "thought concept" someone mentioned above, of a person with two boats, one CC registered and one home moored, is illogical. If boat A is being continually cruised, the other boat is permanently unused. If boat B is lived on, boat A can't cruise. If boat A is a leisure boat, then it can't CC. If boat B is the leisure boat, then boat A can't CC (unless holidays are always less than 14 days). Logically, both should have moorings. I am aware that there are people on the forum who do in fact have boats A and B, registered differently. I'd be interest to read how they justify it, because I'm sure they can, though as I say , I can't see it, unless the CC boat is just dumped round the system, using the towpath as a free mooring, NBTA style, (which is why there's now a surcharge, of course). ETA NB I don't really care much what anyone does, dumper, CCer, home moorer, shiny or yoghurt pot. Doesn't affect me much, I'm just interested in the argument/debate.

One of the worst things you can do as a "representative" of anything is to pick a fight you're bound to lose. Does anyone still take the NBTA seriously? Fairly sure CRT don't.