Arthur Marshall

When I got my boat it hadn't even got a separate domestic battery, just the one that did everything. Or rather, didn't, as we found out on the first trip...

Maybe you are subconsciously sensing the visual changes caused by the heat rising off the hot one? It can't be telepathy unless the radiator is alive, which even with AI getting evetywhere, would be a slightly worrying thought. Although, with St Pat's night coming up, of course, it's worth noting that the writer of Danny Boy was quite aware of plumbing's powers of communication.

There was an episide of Grand Designs a few years ago with a bloke turning a fairly sizeable boat into a giant monstrosity. Only time I've seen Kevin Thing sneer at a build, and it's never been repeated, but I remember it got evicted from its mooring, found nowhere would take it and wound up as a pile of scrap.

Me too. I like working locks, and I like sitting on the boat while someone else works them. I like going along, too, which is something fewer and fewer boaters seem to enjoy.

With, obviously, the utmost respect, you aren't adding much to the discussion, are you? Just being an unhelpful prat trying to start a row. I think the OP has enough on his plate without such foolishness. Please feel free to post further irrelevances on the understanding that they'll be treated as they deserve and ignored. Cheers.

So what? If you're going to comment, please try and make sense.

The OP says he's been there 14 years. His boat was towed there and he's refurbushed it there, so it can't have been that posh at the time. The new owners took over four or five years ago and they are the ones turning it into a "boutique". I presume before that it was just your bog standard marina. It's the new owners taking it upmarket.

It looks like a serious case of gentrification to me. The whole area has gone upmarket over the last few years and they probably only want millionaire type residents, especially as they're advertising as a "boutique" marina, whatever that means. If they've got planning permission for thirty residential boats, they're going to charge a small fortune, and simply don't want a self-renovated historic boat on the site in case it puts posh people off. There were lots of folk complaining about the gentrification of the canals on here a while ago and its effect on the less rich fraternity. The OP has said they've already got rid of two other long standing residents, so that's what it looks like to me. It aint fair, but it's legal. Happens on land, too.

Me too. But if you want to live in the middle of Manchester on a boat, there probably aren't many options, and after so many years it can be a wrench to move elsewhere (so they tell me, anyway, personally I've always liked moving towns as often as possible - I do like variety and the sense of a new start). Are there any other options in Manchester for a residential (official or unofficial) mooring?

It was towed there donkey's years ago - I imagine it's sorted now.

True, the post on here looks like a last resort if, as he says, he's had legal advice already. Be interesting to know what that advice was, presumably not what he would have wanted to hear. I wouldn't be too sure that his mooring chains can't be cut by the marina, either, if he has no legal right to be there. And, presumably, if he stays there without permission, he's liable to penalties for trespass. I'm sure there's someone on here who has run a marina who would know?

You would think that 14 years in a place would earn you some consideration rather than a very short notice to leave, but the same thing happened to a guy on my previous mooring. Really nice bloke, expert in all boat stuff, gas safe engineer and engine expert, been at the same place twenty years. No reason given. I can see why you don't want to move, it's obviously a prime town mooring, but like others here, I can't see what you can do unless you have had, in the past, a long term agreement. I'd check your insurance documents or bank account to see if either give you access to proper legal advice - it's all just opinion on here. But there are other marinas, and, (admittedly it's only my opinion) nicer places to live than Manchester!

I have a vague memory of reading that when these regs came in for caravan sites, they did not apply to those living in marinas, but were specific to the sites.

Doesn't matter. If the Rochdale canal ceases to be a navigable waterway, all them "property and assets present and future including goodwill bookdebts uncalled capital buildings fixtures fixed plant and machinery" will still be there. There just won't be boats on it. Walkers, cyclists, fisherman, birdwatchers and general nature lovers will all be happy. A few dozen boaters really aren't that important. If you think all that money was paid just for our benefit...

The site says it offers 33 residential and 7 visitor moorings. What it did before the takeover is anyone's guess, probably, like most of them, allowing people to live on but not technically residential. Then the whole area has been poshed up and it's being pushed as a "boutique marina", and as always happens in these cases on land as well as water, older residents get pushed out and rents whacked up. I'd have thought if the OP hasn't been paying council tax it can't be residential, though even if he had what difference that would make I don't know. I've always been told that there is no legal security for any mooring. It may just be that the marina, has for the first time got planning permission for residential moorings and it was just tolerated/ignored before. Councils are broke and looking for money.

That's if the boat moves. It was towed there initially - there's an old thread about it on here.

The marina offers both leisure and residential moorings, so I'd presume the OP is on a residential one. But, as he says , the place has changed ownership recently, so he may be on a leisure one as a legacy from ages ago. Before we can advise, we need to know which - eg do you pay council tax? I'd suspect a residential mooring there would cost a bomb, but if legit, housing benefit (or whatever it is now) should cover the cost.

The restoration money would have gone to the infrastructure. Whether the canal is open to navigation or not isn't relevant - councils will be interested in the towpath, for cyclists and walkers, not boats. They might whinge if CRT just tipped a load of concrete into it, but as long as it's wet, looks pretty and doesn't smell too much, no one except us is going to give a toss if CRT chain up the locks and bin the key. And bear in mind that with homeowners grumbling about boats overstaying, being smoky, dieselly and noisy, councils (that get no financial benefit from boats) aren't exactly on our side.

I doubt it. Most lottery funded arty stuff - galleries, museums etc, closes after a few years because the lottery only funds initial capital, not running, costs. I don't think the lottery gets its money back and hands it back to the punters. Businesses hive bits off and dump them all the time without penalty - that's how hedge funds work. The restoration bodies were, I presume, funded by donations and volunteers. Even if they still exist in some form, they wouldn't be due anything back - CRT would just say they've spent the equivalent in maintenance over the years. Or, of course, they could just hand the canal back to the restoration body and tell them to get on with it, like the steam railway buffs. Of course, CRT would charge them for the water...

Didn't CRT specify a minimum length of time that a mooring contract had to be for before it qualified as a home mooring? So if the marina stay is less than that, then the CC licence is correct, as you say. It is no different in principle from taking a CRT winter mooring. CRT can't have it both ways. Probably.

I'd really like to see a photo of this boat.

Unlikely, I feel.

If, as I understand it, the next budget is due to cut public expenditure in order to cut taxes, there is very little future for any if the UK's infrastructure. Most people drive on roads - looked at them recently? I don't expect canals will get as much attention as they do. We almost lost the canals last century. I'd be surprised if they make the next one as more than the rubbish tips they were then, however much CRT revs the prices up.

Obviously. CRT doesn't have enough money to run the show , so what do you expect? Economic zen master, he say in monopoly situation with locked-in consumers, costs go up, non-consumer income go down, prices they go up. Zen master he also say, tin floaty toy be luxury item, you not want pay whack, you go play trombone instead.

Be a bit more than that in a few years time, with the surcharge up to full rate and basic licences up10% a year. Can't blame them. I don't want to pay 10% on the licence and 5% on the mooring, either. There again, I'd rather not pay anything at all and have the system run like clockwork. Magic , that's what we need.