IanD
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Posts posted by IanD
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Just now, PD1964 said:
These arguments go on and on with what’s a fair way to pay for the system running costs through licensing, we’ve had boat length, width, cubic capacity, floor area, boat value and on and on, to what’s fair for an increase to people and boats.
Would you say a £50 license increase throughout the entire range of licenses in April, make a difference to the upkeep of the system? and if this did happen would we see a better serviced system in say 2024/25, when the increase could be budgeted for repairs or would it be the same as it is now? Who knows.
A £50 license fee increase -- assuming that's what you mean, not 50% -- won't even make a tiny dent in CART's funding hole... 😞
The best estimate is that they need at least a 50% increase in overall funding -- about £100M per year -- to maintain the system properly and start to make up the maintenance backlog which has built up over many years.
License fees -- and all other sources of CART income -- probably need to go up by at least this on average, which could be arranged so that there is little or no increase for the most vulnerable and least well-off but 100% or more for those who can afford it. Maybe even 200% or more for CMing widebeams (or any other boat/boater group that people think deserves it)... 😉
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22 minutes ago, M_JG said:
You too are missing the point about a massive retrospectively applied increase to an existing system.
Yes it will mean more new people could not afford to buy a boat. But that is just how things wil pan out. But the people who can afford to boat now wont be forced off the waterways.
You are comparing apples with oranges.
Mortgage interest rates have traditionally been very volatile for decades.
BW/CRT licence fees have not.
Which is of course why so many have moved onto the canals as a cheap place to live in recent years, because house prices and rents have gone up so much...
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49 minutes ago, Philip said:
I agree that the license fee is rather generous as it is and realistically it needs to increase, but it shouldn't be such that boat ownership becomes something only the wealthy/rich can afford, whether it's residential or just using the boat for leisure.
Agreed. Which is why -- like income tax -- there needs to be more graduation in the fee, either by boat area or age or value or type of use or cruising area or pension or a combination of all these, to avoid less well-off boaters being priced off and extracting more money from better-off ones to who the existing fee is a pittance compared to the other costs -- including depreciation and maintenance -- of running a relatively big/new/expensive boat.
Doing this in a way that is simple to administer and difficult to evade shouldn't be beyoind the wit of man -- or even CART -- so long as they can ignore the usual loud "think of the children!" protests from the NBTA and CMers, and probably also from many of those who would (justifiably) end up paying more but think they shouldn't...
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52 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:
A couple of years BC (Before Covid) I read a report of a number of deaths at a barbecue that had used building timber offcuts (presumably arsenic-impregnated) as fuel. I think it was in Australia.
There was an account in the link I gave of s family in Australia who poisoned themselves with arsenic this way...
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2 hours ago, MtB said:
This doesn't add up. Not around here anyway.
A 70ft license is about £1300 IIRC, but a 70ft CRT mooring is £4k or a bit more.
I meant it would put the license fee back to where it is today -- double it (for CMers), then 50% discount for real CCers or home moorers.
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Just now, David Mack said:
Or suitable hose fixed onto proper hose tails at each end and secured with two stainless steel hose clamps at each end.
I thought that's the rule (or is it a recommendation?) for anything that exits under the waterline, like a raw water cooling system?
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58 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:
I don't see why CaRT legally should have to provide additional moorings although there might be a moral argument and also a practical one but potential marina operators might complain about unfair competition. AFAIK CaRT really only have obligations with regard to enabling navigation, not non-navigation. In any event, winter moorings show that CaRT does not have to do very much to provide a mooring except for a little bit of signage. It has no duties wrt water, refuse and sewage, although, again. practical aspects may come into play but it should be no wore than at present.
I suspect your proposal would also have problems with the use of so-called ghost moorings, both in terms of framing new rules as well as enforcement.
If CART want to maximise their income and a large number of people want to use the canal to live on rather than navigate on, they need to find a way of extracting more money. If they provide more home moorings and charge for them, they'll get more money than just putting up the license fee, CC or not.
The problem they have is that the entire license fee structure is designed around the idea than boats on canals actually move around the system, and that no longer seems to be the case -- they actively discourage people from staying in one place unless they have a home mooring, which many can't get, and try and force them to move around (or pretend to) when they obviously don't want to.
What happens now in "honeypots" -- a set of CMers shuffling their boats backwards and forwards while trying not to get nabbed by CART for breaking the CC rules -- is ridiculous, because all the mooring space is filled by boats all the time, often doubled up. The fact that they shuffle around a bit doesn't really make any difference, they might as well stay in one spot and pay CART for the privilege instead, which would mean CART either redefining where they are as a "home mooring" or just removing the CC movement restriction, but extracting more money from them than today.
Depending how you look at it, this means a higher license fee if you stay in one place online (which is then allowed) or a lower one if you genuinely CC or have a home mooring, especially if it's owned by CART so they get all the money instead of a marina operator.
It would stop all the ridiculous and pointless shuffling (which doesn't actually do anything useful like opening up moorings for visitors) and make enforcement *much* easier -- here's the license fee (say, 2x what it is now, *kerching* for CART), stop where you want online (but *not* visitor moorings) for as long as you want. If you have a paid-for home mooring, you get a big discount (say, 50% off so back to where it is now). If you're a *genuine* CCer -- which means you travel a decent annual distance, considerably more than today so CMers have no chance of fiddling the rules -- you also get a big discount, putting you back where you are now.
This reverse the burden of proof -- the assumption is that unless you can prove otherwise (home mooring is easy, long distance travelled also not so hard) you're going to be moored in one place or one small area, and will pay maybe double today's fee. It's accepting the fact that CMers are bunging up the canals where they want to live cheaply, but making it rather less cheap and a lot more revenue for CART -- and a lot less enforcement effort or perceived unfairness. All the effort that CART currently put into trying to enforce the CC rules could be diverted into actually enforcing visitor mooring rules.
Those who genuinely follow the rules today by having a proper home mooring or CCing as the rules intended don't pay any more than today; those who bend the rules and CM don't have to shuffle/pretend any more, but they do have to pay more. VMs can be kept clearer because CART can concentrate enforcement on these instead of wasting time trying to catch boat-shufflers. CART get more income.
What's not to like?
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6 minutes ago, magnetman said:
I don't care if my family members die. They're only humans. There are plenty of these about some would say too many. My kids spent their early years living in my boats and we have wood fires and smoke in the boat yes they do cough. If they die so what ? Why would I care?
Yes I do think population reduction is needed. I would rather it was by elimination of the weaker specimens naturally through environment than the other option which is conflict.
We've done this one before.
People stick cigarettes in their mouth and breath through them for decades and get no ill effects. Others die from it.
Do you see smoking being banned? No.
Smoking is a choice based habit. Keeping warm when it is cold outside is something you do have to do or you have a really shit time. It's not optional.
So you're ignoring the principle that even if you should be allowed to do things which are risky to yourself, you shouldn't be allowed to inflict risk on other people without their consent just to suit yourself?
This applies to smoking (secondary smoke), woodburning (most of the PM2.5 affect other people, not you), drink-driving, and many other aspects of life.
If you disagree and think that weaker specimens should be eliminated, surely that gives a stronger specimen -- a skilled hunter with a shotgun, say -- the right to shoot you for fun, which also removes you from the gene pool and reduces the population?
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34 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:
There simply aren't enough hobby boaters to makes any great difference to CRTs income, however much they whack the fees up - the numbers giving up will cancel out a lot of the projected profit.
The canals are already being used as a housing solution, except it's being done rent free. Monetise that and enforce it properly and there might be some canal left in fifty years.
Which is exactly what would happen with (for example) a license surcharge for CCing (or discount for home mooring, which amounts to the same thing).
The current situation where a CCer pays something like £1000 a year to CART and a boater with a home mooring pays this plus maybe £3000 a year to a marina makes no sense for CART, it massively encourages "fake" CCers/CMers because this is so much cheaper (about a quarter the cost) than having a home mooring -- which I agree are difficult to find, there simply aren't enough to meet the demand.
What would make more sense is for CART to raise the fee for CCers and possibly drop it for boats with a home mooring, depending on whether they want to raise overall revenue, to close the price gap between the two and encourage more people who are really CMers to find and pay for a home mooring -- which would of course mean that CART would have to make more of them available.
This is acknowledging the change in use of the canals for a lot of boaters (from boating to cheap living) and monetising it, as you said.
Of course the losers would then be the genuine CCers who do roam round the system instead of essentially staying in one place, in other words what this was intended for. Unfortunately it seems they have become outnumbered in recent years by the CMers who basically want to stay in one place but without paying for it.
Maybe the genuine CCers could be given a discount if they can prove that they did travel a distance over the year which fits with the spirit of the rules, meaning more than a few miles -- though this is then effectively just changing the definition of what CCing is...
What's obvious is that the license system as it stands is not fit for purpose; it might have been given the use of the canals in the last century when it was devised, but not today given how they're used now. Something needs to change, both to reduce abuse of the license fee system and make it "fairer" (whatever that means...) and to get more income for CART to maintain the canals with -- as opposed to putting up more blue signs, obviously... 😉
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Just now, Jon57 said:
Na it's as clean as a babies bottom. 😁
You mean one with explosive diarrhoea? 😉
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9 minutes ago, Jon57 said:
Yep to s/steel sink. You can wash your paint brush in it no worries. All my sink have sea cocks on them incase of emergency. Exhaust is on the roof 😉
<koff koff>...
(but probably not as bad as a Bolinder...) -
8 minutes ago, RichardH said:
We knew Nigel well. Good bloke. When he packed up in 2010, we took one of his (Green Man) to the Lancaster.
Just to prove that it always rains in Wales... 😉
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42 minutes ago, Jon57 said:
But the corian can be repaired. Not the glass. OK if it's been emptied of its contents first. 🍸🤣
I was advised not to have a kitchen sink with a Corian bottom -- even if it had Corian sides -- because cutlery being dropped in gradually leads to the bottom getting covered in little nicks, and it's then difficult to keep clean.
Having Corian sides and a stainless steel bottom -- one suggested solution -- seems pointless, a triumph of appearance (and cost!) over common sense -- a stainless steel undermount sink made much more sense to me...
5 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:But no push fit wastes, must be solvent welded, compression or threaded.
If using screw up plastic with rubber olives I put a stainless self tapper through the outside to bite the inner pipe.
As so often, the devil is in the details... 😉
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12 minutes ago, MrFish said:
So what is the maximum depth of sink (measured from top of work surface) to the bottom of the sink, that can be fitted without need for a drain pump? assuming a skin fitting is 250mm above the waterline.
I might well be wrong, but I think the 250mm isn't required if the other end of the fitting is sealed into a sink which is watertight to levels higher than this, it applies to things like air vents into engine rooms where water can flow in and fill up/sink the boat -- leastways, that's what I thought the rule actually said...
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4 hours ago, RichardH said:
Hi All
Stumbled across this discussion when we received a call for a holiday and I checked the 'net to see where the CBE name was still in existence.
It wasn't covid that caused us to close the business. It was ultimately the risk of the water levels on the Leeds/Liverpool and our business not having other options to make money e.g. day boats, marina related income, boat building etc. 2010 knocked us for 6 when BW closed the canal for 12 or so weeks. 2011 was a poor year, presumably due to customer confidence and whilst we opened a base on the Lancaster to split the risk, it was so marginal it was a struggle to make a livable income.
We ran the RYA helmsmans course which helped when boats were idle but ultimately we decided to start winding down in 2015 having run for 8 seasons.
In terms of boat disposal, 3 boats were sponsored. 2 went back to their owners, Florence (ABC Built) went to Pennine and is now 'Eshton'
Rosa May went to Nottingham Boat Sales and illegally sold - for which the owner of the business went to court.
Grace and Isabel went to a hire company in Droitwich but were sold a couple of years after that.
Strumble was a tough sale and is moored just a couple of miles away on the L&L.
I still offer boat handling coaching - think less tick box than RYA for people wanting to build confidence on some of the basics and have been an inspector for British Marine for the Hire Boat Handover Scheme since 2015 which has enabled me to keep in touch with the industry.
If we had kept going, it is fair to say 2022 would have been the final straw with the canal being closed from July. Who can run a business with that level of risk?
I remember 2010 well, we had a hire booked on the L&L -- not from you, from Rosewood Narrowboats, who this closure killed off... 😞
https://narrowboatworld.com/2355-had-enough-of-the-lal
The only positive side was that they moved their boats to Nantwich after the closure, from where we had a very pleasant week going to Llangollen and back.
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1 hour ago, peterboat said:
Probably CRT has the 3rd largest amount of listed buildings/structures of agencies in the UK it must slaughtering their funds
We will see Ian, when you and a few others are the only boaters on CRT waters for a week before they close them
Well unless CART raise more funding -- from higher license fees, for example -- this is more likely to happen.
I absolutely don't want to drive less well-off boaters off the canals, as should be obvious from what I've said, I want the extra cost to be borne by those who can afford it. If you don't like my idea, what's *your* solution?
Why don't you stop hiding behind false concern for others and admit that *you* don't want to pay more?
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21 minutes ago, peterboat said:
Honestly Ian the balancing act is very fine, a lot of people would leave the canals very quickly if the licence goes up to much, as for the wide argument the canal I am on is a wide canal we use no more resources than a narrowboat so it doesnt fathom why they should pay more. Honestly if my boat was allowed on the broads I would move there as the Broads authority is at least competent at running a waterway
Like I said, those asked to pay more will object... 😉
Graduation means that some people will be asked to pay considerably more, and some of them may well leave -- though the other point of view is that the majority won't, especially all this who don't see such big rises.
Boat width -- or floor area, to be more precise -- is a very common way of setting taxes or fees all over the world, is generally accepted as fair, and doesn't seem to stop better-off people buying bigger properties. It's nothing to do with use of resources.
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10 minutes ago, magnetman said:
Yes but humans have been burning wood since we invented fire and we haven't died out. Why would we suddenly die out now from burning wood?
It's a diversion from the real problems facing humans two of which are overpopulation and over consumption..
Wood burning just isn't there in relevance terms.
So on that principle, anything that kills less than the hundreds of thousands that Covid did should be ignored -- pollution, ICE, and especially anything that means people should change their behaviour?
Or are you saying that since these reduce population they're a good thing?
Since it's been estimated that the PM2.5 from woodburners is responsible for around 10000 excess deaths per year in the UK (error margins 2000 to 20000), would you be happy for one of your family to be amongst them?
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31 minutes ago, magnetman said:
Most pallets are heat treated rather than using chemicals.
Having said that there will be some bromide treated ones about so yes check the codes before burning.
I think the most likely culprits for the arsenic are old fence panels and treated structural timber of various sorts. Possibly scaffold planks but I am not convinced they are all treated.
I've put a fair bit of treated wood through my fires in the past. Mainly just to get it going. I think this is all a storm in a teacup.
If I die horribly of cancer I won't be running around complaining about it.
It is interesting to see the Grauniad going on and on about this. How many arrrticles have they done do far about burning wood? Someone got a bee in their bonnet.
The Grauniad isn't the only paper publishing articles like this, but it does seem to publish more than most.
Might be because it's owned by a trust, not somebody with vested interests.
Or might be because Grauniad readers are more interested in stories about global warming, pollution and climate change than readers of certain other papers, including one I was recently accused of reading which I found most offensive... 😞
Which isn't a bad thing for reasons that should be obvious, but it gives those who aren't bothered about these things or don't believe in them a handy stick to beat the paper and its readers with... 😉
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1 minute ago, enigmatic said:
This
I'd go further and say that Facebook is marginally better (it's possible to create a whole bunch of realistic looking accounts with lots of friends saying nice things about your services, but it's a lot of effort, and if you rip people off, they tend to turn up in all the Facebook discussion groups complaining about you). On the other hand, anybody can buy a .com with privacy box ticked and set up a professional looking website. I imagine Facebook is also much more useful for small boating businesses in getting referrals (if they're good)
FWIW think I met someone who said "I'm CW Boatmoving on Facebook" moving a boat (at a normal speed!) on the Great Ouse last year. Seemed a nice guy.
Professional websites with apparently good customer ratings/reviews/comments are also often deceptive -- I know of one large furniture retailer which simply removes strongly negative ones... 😞
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12 minutes ago, Jon57 said:
Lab sinks or Belfast sinks are supposed to be mounted under a overhanging worktop( wood or solid surface) which allow the water from the draining washing up vier the draining grooves or a freestanding drying rack. The one it the op picture is just ceramic sink which can be fitted inset into the worktop or undercounted like a lab sink or Belfast. Some of the ceramic sinks just have a normal overflow like a s/steel sink. Can be a bit of a bugger sometimes when fitting into a worktop. Not a problem when underslung. Don’t ask me how aI know.😬😬
Ceramic sinks -- or if you're rich and posh, inbuilt Corian ones -- also have the disadvantage that when you drop a glass into one there's only one winner, and it's not the glass... 😞
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And now, just in case you thought burning (dry) waste construction wood/pallets was better... 😞
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/09/arsenic-london-air-burning-waste-wood
Mind you, I suspect some people on here would say that's fine since it only affects Londoners and they deserve it... 😉
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6 minutes ago, Victor Vectis said:
It was the first pit in the country to produce a million tons in a year from a single coal face.
It was back in the 1970s. We had a visit there but I can't remember the name of that face.
I wonder what happened to those big capital letter 'K's that were on the top of the winding towers?
(Good grief! I'm so old I can remember when there were coal mines in Yorkshire)
My uncle (at least, his job...) moved to Kellingley after the Prince of Wales in Pontefract closed. He retired in his fifties, and died of pneumoconiosis a few years later, like many other coal miners... 😞
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12 hours ago, David Mack said:
Fine. But first you have to define the objectives you are trying to achieve.
There seem to be various objectives floating about including increasing the total amount of money paid by boaters to CRT to ease their funding issues, and changing the balance of the charging structure so those who make greater 'use' of the system pay more than those who use it less. Or those who use busy areas pay more than those who use quieter areas. And wrapped up in this is whether the change applies just to licence/use charges or whether mooring costs (and avoidance of them by CCers) are also part of the mix.
And having decided on what objectives you want to achieve, it is probably worth looking at how far you could get by tweaking the current system, rather than introducing something fundamentally new (which will almost certainly give rise to other unforseen problems).
On the taxation principle that the weight should fall more heavily on those with broader shoulders, there's also the suggestion to make the license fee have a bigger variation with things like boat width/age/value, to avoid fee rises pricing less well-off people in older narrowboats off the canals by extracting more money from better-off people in expensive new boats, especially wide ones... 😉
Like any other change ever proposed, this would meet with vociferous objections from those who would end up paying more... 😞
Not looking good for us
in General Boating
Posted
I can afford it, which is why I keep repeatedly saying that the fee should be graduated so people like me pay more -- probably a lot more! -- but less well-off boaters don't, so they don't get priced off the canals.
Please don't lump me in with the "I'm all right Jacks" on the forum, who I consistently call out for precisely that attitude in many threads... 😉