Rob S

There is no other access than through the house. It made landscaping the garden and building a conservatory a right pain. I think this is one of the longest terraces in the country, and we're pretty much right in the middle! Probably. Anything that could interfere with the water course i guess.

Lol. I'm sure they would if they could... ...maybe we should all team up and start charging BA to fly over our houses! Thinking this might be the way forward if they start questioning it. Although i need permission from them to build next to the river, so they could refuse and force me to have to keep my boat in the water. How would that work with regards to my rights??

I just measured it in google earth and its about 60 feet wide along the stretch at the back of my house. So as wide as the example nigel gave.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps?ll=51.446395,-0.973292&spn=0.000743,0.001742&t=h&dg=opt&z=20 This a google map of the stretch of river I'm talking about. Luckly a bit further south someone has been nice enough to moor a pair of narrowboats side by side. You can see its well wide enough to allow them to pass. You can also see all the my neighbours boats and overgrown willows too.

Nigel, You should write or book something with all this info in it. I bet there are loads of people that would buy it!

Well its about thigh height at the moment at my mooring, so i can float my little boat on it, but i don't think it would be classed as navigable to a bigger boat. Plus its on the outside of a bend, so the only way a bigger boat will get there is by crashing into mine or my neghbours bank I need to find out where the maps are that show the width of the navigation channel.

Well yes, exactly. Even i could manage to drag the boat onto our patio, it does occasionally flood, so it would require a license. I guess if our lounge flooded we might need a license for the floating sofa too? at least if theres a drought, it won't need a license, although in that case it might make having a boat a bit pointless! I think I might just investigate building a boat lift. The whole boat with engine probably weighs about 60 kilos, so a small lift would be able to pull it out the water. As i said before, it will be over the water, and will occupy the same space, but if its not touching the water.... I could probably build one for the same price as a years license anyway

But what if part of the golf course were on my property? I'd expect to be able to least hang about there without paying for using the whole course!

I may well do. I do have insurance though. Although do i need a BSS? The boat is brand new, so I don't understand if i need a BSS? I did find this while googling http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/889/pdfs/uksiem_20110889_en.pdf I'm about 1km upstream from high bridge, so i am literally right at the end of the kennet and avon, before it becomes the thames. This is the issue, in that i could get a CART yearly license, but i would still need day licenses for the thames!! And a gold licence would be over 500 quid!

I do help maintain the navigation, because i'm required to keep my section of river clear of debris and obstruction. Me and my neighbours do a hell of a lot more along this stretch than CART, as i'm sure people who have tried zig zagging there way through all the overgrown trees will tell you! I also have to live with the fact that we may get flooded, and have to pay huge home insurance costs due to the proximity to the river, so it's not all plain sailing (no pun intended)

Ok, thanks for all the great feedback everyone. It's been really useful to get such a wide range of opinions. I shall carry on researching and see what i can dig up.

Thanks for the correction. That's how little info i could find....not even how to spell it properly. And apple don't include in the ipad dictionary for autocorrection! I mean i should be able to because it is on my property. Just because a charity has decided i owe them £400+ per year to keep a boat on water they don't own, over my own land.

That's not the point is it. I pay 120 pounds road tax a year, and use my car every day. I'm questionning why i need to pay over £400 a year to store my boat on my property, when i should be able to treat it as a day cruiser and just buy day licenses. I'm sure if the gov gave people the option to pay for road tax daily, many people would! Nigel, thanks for that very detailed answer, I noticed you wrote on other forums anout riperian rights. Do you know if i have a right to navigate the river using these rights? As i said before the EA seem very keen to mention the rights when it involves doing things for them, but there is very little mention of the right to navigate the river. I've seen several sources mentioning common law and the right to navigate but where might i find more precise information? We would be covered the same exception Yes it is. I named it that as buying it caused so many headaches between me and the other half! I did wonder about that, you have to ask where does it end? There water over my land, my boat on there water over my land, there air over my boat over there water over my land....it goes on. Still maintain that they don't own the water. No one does. I'm allowed to abstract something like 30000 litres a year or something. I don't need to ask there permission, so am i stealling there water?

Gingerbeer, the boat is 15ft. It is completly open and has no overnight capabilities. So realisically it has a range of about 2 hours from our house. As you can imagine, i'm a bit loathed to pay for a license that vovers the whole of the uk, when i have no chance of using 99% of it. I would argue that they don't maintain my section of river, because i'm responsible for it. They seem to want it both ways, the owners to maintain the river frontage, and then pay CART to do it aswell I have a driving license that i paid for once. I would argue that the river license is actually a tax. It certainly seems more like road tax than a driving license.

I believe this agreement is already in place. I'm quite sure the actual mooring is ok and doesn't need to be paid for. our neighbour has had numerous discussions over the years and has letters saying that we do not need to pay for mooring. This question is more about licensing. As I can't see why if I can moor it for free on my property, then why do i need a license when its not being used?

Dominic, thanks for the info. Where might i start to research such things? I know for a fact that i don't have to pay for mooring. A neighbour a few houses has a letter from BW saying so (dated 1999) but still valid. He also has a letter saying that it would be ok to license it for part of the year, but I'm looking for something more legally binding than that. Having read on here about riperian rights etc i figured it would be good it ask. as it is there are quite a few different opinions already! Keep them coming. I know that the EA have Issued a list of riperian "rights" but this mostly relates to what we are obliged to do (keep the river clean etc, which i do do). I understand that there is a old common law that gives owners of land ajoining a river the right to navigate it. searching for riperian rights on this site brings up several interesting articles.

Thanks for the feedback. Do they own the water? I don't think legally anyone can own the water. the Riperian rights stop me damming or blocking the river, but I think they also give me the right to access, abstract water from and use the river in limited amounts too? About the road tax comparison. if you wanted to not use your car for 6 months of the year, you are allowed to SORN notify it. Then you are allowed to keep it on your drive (attached to the road network). But you don't have to pay road tax on it. Its just taken under trust that you won't drive it whilst its sorned. I'm only looking for something along these lines. I don't mind paying when i'm using it, just not when I'm not using it. And I don't see why I should have to pull it out the water. If I hover it an inch above the water, i don't need a license, yet its still taking up the same space on the river. I'm not trying to con the C&RT, I just don't think that the current licensing is designed with people like me in mind. The licensing at the moment seems very all or nothing.

Hi all, I have a question regarding licensing, and riperian rights. I'm the lucky owner of a property that backs onto the river Kennet. As owner of the property we own the river bank and upto the centre line of the river. These are our Riperian rights. I have just bought a day boat that we intend to use mostly on nice summer afternoons to just cruise up and down our stretch of river. it is moored at the bottom of our garden on our property. I fully intend to buy a day license whenever i take the boat out for the day, but I've been lead to believe that because it is stored on the water, i would need a yearly license for it. Even though it is on my property. Surely this can't be right? I spoke to the C&RT and they claimed that I would need to because I only owned the riverbed, and they owned the water?? I'm sure this isn't right. A yearly license for the boat would be around 400 which is very expensive for something we are just going to use a handful of times in the summer. I believe I'm also correct in saying that I can legally prosecute people for trespassing on my property if they enter the section of water that I own. If this is so, then how can they claim it belongs to them? I also think my Riperian rights allow me some use of the river without the need for a license, so again, why would i need one when It's moored on my property? Has anyone got any experience of these matters? I've seen a few legal quotes about riperian rights on this forum, but am unsure how it effects my situation because this is a river and not a canal. Thanks for the help!