bassplayer

In your example I'd take it to be valid from 00:00 to 24:00 on the 1st July only. Maybe the question to ask CRT is "What TIME does my one day licence become valid from and what TIME does it expire?" If thay are confused by that then maybe they don't know eithwr.

Passed this at Bugbrook Thursday. Well saying that we waited for them to come through the narrow stretch on the approach to the pub. Seemed freindly guys. Good luck to them. Where did it get dropped into the GU? Edited to say ignore that question I should have worked that out...doh.

Could you expand on that Mike, I'm not sure what you are getting at.

Got to agree with you Betty. Where are they going put these? Booking or otherwise there is only a finate amount of room for visitors so it sounds just like an excuse to charge for a VM's which are currently free as part of our licence.

Do you dump more than CC then? If so, that might be why you don't see the other boats move.

The tunnel pound was 'assumed' to be 14 day before as there wasn't any signage to say otherwise. If there was a 48h sign at the southern end I don't remember it, but if there was then why wasn't a sign put at the Northern end? How did people coming in from the tunnel end know? Anyway that's all in the past now. I personally think that the £25 notices are aggressive and send an unwelcome message to visiting boaters. As I said before, people may worry that in an emergency or breakdown and have to leave the boat for a few days, they will run up a big bill. Unfortunately it's the nice people who worry about doing the wrong thing who are being inconvenienced. Those who don't give a toss or/and aren't afraid to just play by the law let it go over their head. I'm sure if the £25 fine bit was removed from the 48h signs it would encourage more boaters to stay in SB. Why not try it for a year and see what happens?

...but it's what you wrote. Hmm...fair point.

Blimey you type quickly. Well that's good to know. Anyway you called me paranoid...and you are probably right.

I did.

That seems to be the case with the rivers you spend much of your time on. Maybe not so much on the canals. ...and yes, not giving a toss helps too.

I hope you are right about that in the future. Having said that I was warned several years ago that things would get much worse in a just a few years and I'm still enjoying it despite the increase in control freakery.

Those who you have spoken to who have "low impact lifestyles" and a lifestyle predicated on earning very little, and who expect everything for FREE on the grounds that they have no money.

As I thought. You haven't spoken to any of them.

I suppose in the back of our minds, if we had to come off the boat for an emergency or there was a fault with the boat, you'd be worried about picking up a £25 fine/charge each day. So reduce that risk by staying on a 14 day. Perhaps some of us aren't mooring at these spots out of protest. Perhaps we prefer to moor up with other boaters for social and security reasons. Perhaps, the whole idea of the £25 threat just grates on us so much we move on to an area which seems more welcoming!

If you feel that strongly about it why not offer to help CRT remove it? I'm quite surprised how long it's been left there really. Whilst I don't agree with it I must admit the devil in me thought it was quite clever.

I think the key swerve word there is 'espouse'. Nothing wrong with chewing thoughts over with mates in the pub but it doesn't sound like you have spoken to anyone actually living this 'low impact lifestyle' to me There's a challenge for you. Absolutely. CRT get a lot of money from wayleave charges too for pipelines and cables which cross the waterways. I'm just suggesting we as boaters do give a lot back to the community in more ways than just money.

I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by this too. Maybe some canal features are seen to more appropriate for funding by tax payers or public donations, than others. I'm not so sure as the tow path in most areas get lots of visits from walkers, cyclists, fishermen etc. The boats are a huge part of these attractions so maybe it's reasonable to subsidise boaters to a degree.

Pendulum swung too far the other way, probably. Then again I suppose some might see that as a success. I wonder sometimes whether differences we see between places like SB and Llangollen are more down to local pressures exerted on CRT, maybe from the council or local boaters associations. I think they got Llangollen right but SB very wrong.

I'm just trying to understand what you mean when you say "low impact lifestyles USUALLY means a lifestyle predicated on earning very little, and expecting everything for FREE on the grounds that you have no money". Have you been to any events where members of the NBTA have attended and spoken to them about your views?