John Margetts

I have spotted a bit of land next to a canal which appears like its waste land and did a search in the land registry to find out who owns it but nothing came up, ie there are no records. It is not owned by an adjacent property. Does anyone know how i can go about making this my permanent mooring?

when you have built up trust, some fuel boats will deliver when you are not there, text you the bill and you pay online. Not suitable for criminals. It only works if we all remain trustworthy. For those who are not on their boat - work, etc - this is so convenient and we have used this method many times. Fuel boats are often a bit cheaper than boatyards and i would rather give my money to them anyway.

If your engine is well maintained its cheap enough. Honda petrol generators are quiet but more expensive than your engine. Solar panels of about 250w with an MTTP controller will set you back 500 to 600 quid but do a great job if there is enough sun striking the panel at a perpendicular angle. Wind generators are pricey and cause vibration, with difficulty in mounting securely so you can take them up or down easily. In other words it's swings and roundabouts. Most people run their engine for an hour or two a day to get jot water and electric. A good engine should not use more than 2 litres of red diesel in 2 hours, which would currently cost £1.80.

theres a 14 day spot just above the lock at Kings Cut. Oxford has no 14 day visitor moorings and Oxford city council is getting silly with boats on the Thames trying to stop us mooring even for the legal 24 hours. Eynsham Marina is a good option they are very accommodating and secure if they have vacancies. Depends on your licence bur you could get a month one although if you are going down to Hungerford you will need to go on the Thames anyway to get to the Kennet and Avon. Abingdon Marina on the Thames are also secure. You would also get moorings and the Thames and Kennet marina near Reading but they are expensive.

The trouble is that how long will it be in this country before armed struggle is the only way to fight against injustice? It might seem OTT now I agree but there is a terribly ominous direction that this country is taking as our rights and likelihoods are gradually eroded away. I think that this country will become unrecognisable to us living now within only a few generations. We are doing nothing to stop this and have a hopelessly naive view that somehow sense and goodwill will always prevail. It will not. There is a very real likelihood that if we allow this greed culture to follow it's intended and hellbent course, not only will there be no great society there most certainly won't be any waterways, public transport, jobs, NHS, schools, libraries, etc. There will be nothing but the smoldering remains of a forgotten species.

There is no evidence that the visitor moorings need restricting to 2 days and have £25 overstay fines imposed to discourage people from causing congestion. The CandRT have said that people not being able to moor up is the reason for these restrictions. Since they must have researched it and talked to people they must have found out that their "fears" are unjustified therefore they must be lying if they still continue to use an argument which has no basis of fact. I concluded therefore that they must have a hidden agenda of just trying to make money, justified by lies. This is what corruption is. Taking money from people under false pretences. Do you think corruption is the wrong word? Perhaps criminal would have been better since they would be conning people out of money by suggesting a situation existed when it quite evidently does not.

Thats the culture now- if it doesnt affect you dont get involved. This is how unpopular legislation gets pushed through. We need to stand together regardless of whether we have moorings or not, whether we are likely to be unaffected by 2 day visitor restrictions etc. Divide and rule is an old hackneyed phrase but its more true now than ever. Stand together by refusing to pay any £25 charges. If we all did this their unfair and corrupt system would be unworkable and they would be forced to act responsibly by being reigned in as Madcat says. If we give in to this, what next? Daily charges at all moorings irrespective of how long you stay? The CandRT are obviously flexing their muscles and trying to get away with just making money to line their pockets. There are no real reasons for their plans and if they say there are, they are just simply lying. Stand firm and refuse to comply.

Be nice when he starts producing goats cheese though. Common land is for poor people to graze their livestock, not for living on. Why can he not just tie up off the end of the visitor moorings. That would come under the default 2 week rule but surely if he's not bothering anyone, what does it matter? Long live those who choose to live their own lives the way they want to. He would get more sympathy however if he used a bit of brain and considered others. So why is it alright for a commercial company to abuse the visitor mooring facility to make money just because your group has said they can and the rest of us will be potentially threatened with action if we did the same thing, but without your permission. Surely you have a duty to supply visitors with an alternative to the site you have taken from us? By the way a "service" is just what it says it is - a facility for public use - having to pay for a trip boat is therefore NOT using a service. Incidentally, I welcome the trip boat and think it's a good idea. I just don't see why you should take "public" moorings. This mooring WE have paid for already through our license.

I have seen a few of the CandRT employees. One was fixing a lock gate at the Hanwell flight, the rest were checking licenses. For saying how much work it must take to keep the waterways up and running, that bloke doing proper work must be putting in a lot of overtime. Of course we know that the "trust" like BW only come and fix, dredge or maintain when the problem is so bad that boats cannot navigate. It would presumably be a lot more cost effective to use all the rusting, barely used working boats and machinery that I often see moored up and unused in derelict BW boatyards to keep the waterways properly maintained instead of leaving it until there's a crisis. What do they do with my £900 per year? Oh yes pay for people to CYCLE around checking that I have paid my £900 per year!!

yes sorry. Many hire boaters DO learn the ropes properly. We only notice the one's that don't. I work on the railways as a driver and found myself getting sick of "everyone" complaining "all the time". Of course thats generalisations for you, I only notice the whingers because they are in my face....whingeing!

That is admittedly a fault with this. We are so eager to find quick solutions we are at risk of allowing subjectivity and apparent evidence to cloud an objectively accurate conclusion. Nevertheless, as a group, boaters could be more aware of the need to develop a deeper collective responsibilty to each other. Neighbourhood watch schemes seem to have been fairly successful by all accounts although the image these things conjure up is not always to everyone's liking. As someone who dislikes the trend towards greater materialistic well being, I probably don't have anything worth nicking on my boat, even in terms of equipment. I have a cheap 300w inverter for example. Many people report that it is not the loss of "things" which hurts so much but the feeling of violation. Stealing one's tentative stability and privacy is not so easy to recompense.

Hire boaters are really not given enough training on the etiquette expected on the waterways and probably do not bother to do much research before they go on a week or two's holiday. Mooring on lock waiting areas is an obvious no-no to us but maybe for non-boaters this is not so obvious. I find if we explain these sorts of things, politely, to people, the information is generally well received. You get exactly the same thing with travellers in Asia where people do not bother to learn local customs and give offence to the indigenous population with their behaviour. Sadly this is a reflection of our modern self-centered culture where people are increasingly uninterested and unconcerned about anyone else except themselves. This myopic world-view looks set to deepen. The irony is that the last two generations have been able to see the world, even the remotest parts, like never before and yet people seem to learn less and less about local cultures. This same ignorance prevails on our inland waterways. Has anyone noticed, in London especially, how there are two sets of prices for 2nd hand narrowboats : the proper price which boaters pay and double that for those who see a boat as cheap housing and make no effort to learn about boats! The say ignorance is bliss? Not so, it can be very expensive and culturally divisive.

Quite agree. Boaters need to look after each other. Perhaps some sort of organised peer pressure might be in order. I don't mean ganging up on someone but if a known perpetrator could be somehow widely exposed and their identity publicised using posters, word of mouth, etc, even though they may not feel shame they would at least be recognised by everyone. Going much further we could find out why they are behaving like this and maybe even help them. This might be too much christianity in action for most but it would do the trick. Remove the need for crime and no crime would be needed. Or is this a bit naive?

yes this is what I find. Southern Uk culture is decidedly more individualistic and self centered. This is seen in behaviours like those described as well as things like not bothering to lower paddles and close gates after leaving a lock, pushing in at locks, particularly on the Thames, not slowing down for moored boats, going through locks alone even when it is obvious when the boat approaching behind is also using the lock, using locks out of synch. and thus wasting water, the list goes on. I moved to London 15 years because I had to for work and the friends I have are all non-English because no matter how hard I have tried, people down here don't want to bother getting to know you unless there is some advantage to them in doing so. "Why don't you leave then?" I hear you say. Well, I am doing, I give up on the place, it's socially shallow and frustrating. Sorry to any southerners, I know this is a gross generalisation and there must be many exceptions, it's just I have not met any myself. I have tried.

Right it seems people are having differing experiences. I would be interested to know exactly what sort of harrassment you and others are experiencing. I tend to cruise in the spring and summer and moor up in the winter. For the first 4 years I had a permanent cruising mooring at Northolt and for the last two years have been lucky enough to secure temporary moorings in central London. I wonder if I have not received (yet) any unwanted attention from The Man is because on their database I will come up as having a home mooring and consequently do not have a C.C. license? I may be able to do the same again this year but this is not guarenteed from year to year. I seem totally unable to find residential moorings and am very reluctant to get involved with the BW bidding system for the CandRT moorings which is a blatant rip off and unethical. So, please let me know in what ways you have benn hassled.

I suspect you are not alone by any means. I was never that keen on BW but they had sacked so many of their staff that they were never much of a threat to our choice of lifestyle. The name "Canals and Rivers Trust" sounds like a nice little group of waterways enthusiasts who volunteer to give their time for something they are passionate about. This is obviously utter crap and they are now starting to show their true colours. Talk of mooring rangers going around and slapping parking tickets on boats and checking that everyone's license is up to date does absolutely nothing at all to enhance the waterways, people's enjoyment of them and nor does it fix one lock, dredge any silted up canal or be available to provide assistance and information. This is their agenda it seems. Interesting how often I pass by old boatyards full of rusting dredgers and other canal workboats which have just been abandoned and are only ever used when there is an emergency and there is no choice. "Trust" is a word which is out of place entirely. They are just another profit making pack of bloodhounds thirsty for our money to stuff into their bulging pockets for doing absolutely nothing except...stuffing our money into their bulging pockets...shame on them. Get radical mate, it's all we have left.

The comparison and figures sound realistic. Bear in mind that rents are now growing many times faster than wages and are at a ridiculously high level in terms of percentage of income. Yes, it is Thatcher's fault. May she forever be in torment.

So where do you stand? Not sure from your postings if you agree with the mooring restrictions regarding returning and handing out of £25 parking tickets or not.

I always considered my license to be the equivalent of a local tax in that it pays for my rubbish being taken away - as long as I take it to a bin of course - upkeep of the waterways, mooring rings, etc. Yes I use libraries occasionally but there are a lot of services I do not use. Should I therefore pay for only the ones I do use and not subsidise those I don't? I was born in a socialist country which believed that the wealth created by all should be shared by all. As I got older the system changed to one where you are supposed to pay for what you get and not get what you don't pay for. A selfish bland materialistic world that only thinks that money has any worth. In fact money is utterly worthless. I know which system I prefer but we seem to be getting further and further away from that. Not a very civilised way to go is it, especially when many of the libraries were built by the generous gift of a man called Carnegie who thought that being poor should not be a bar against reading and educating yourself and consequently they were free. The real issue is that we should be all uniting together on the things that really matter and not knit picking about who pays what in a silly childish squabble about one person getting more sweeties than another. We need to get radical before it's too late and there is nothing left of the brave new world we started to create after the last world war. If we don't boating will only be for the rich.

Here here Dave. Thats it in a nutshell. Why do people argue about who "gets away" with what. The whole capitalist system is geared towards keeping the rich rich and the rest of us paying for their riches.

most boaters, narrowboaters more specifically, are old school and follow an unwritten code of politeness and consideration. This is an archaic practice rarely seen in any other walks of life these days. We are a society where people think they are individuals, independant of others and whose only concern in life is to get what they want and ignore the needs of others. This is what you get when you have a society based on materialistic greed. The fact that people only think of themselves should not be suprising as you cannot have a selfish world and expect everyone to behave decently to each other. The former breeds the latter and we have ourselves to blame for allowing to happen. Personally, I moved onto a boat to escape as much of this shallow society as possible as it has nothing in it which I can look up to, aspire towards or admire. If I could make the full step and cease to have any contact with todays's England I would gladly jump at the chance but like all controlled societies even escape has been marketed.

in 6 years of living aboard and having travelled most of the southern waterways I can say that I have NEVER had a problem mooring up anywhere. That includes the busy places like Little Venice, Camden, Bath, etc. There is no problem and no congestion like the Cand RT says there is. They are merely pushing their own agenda probably as an excuse to go around charging mooring violation fees at £25 a go. This whole thing is made up to justify profits as usual. Why don't they just leae us alone. Fewer people are taking to the waterways and so this so called "problem" will not get "worse". The powers that be in the UK are not happy unless they are curtailing people's freedom and then making money off the backs of some draconian laws thrown together and justified with some empty moralistic platitudes about being "fair". The sickening thing is that most Cand RT employess have never even been near a boat let alone understand the environment they are dealing with. I therefore don't see their comments as being valid.