Wiseman

Apologies if this has been posted before but I thought I would share this article from the Oxford Mail 18/06/2014: Interesting situation in Oxford where the Council, C&RT and the EA all seem seem to view the boaters as "problems" who need to be eradicated or at best "managed". The last couple of years has seen Oxford Council crack down on boats without home moorings through Unlawfully Moored Boats Enforcement Group (Umbeg). Continuous cruisers on the Oxford Canal are being served patrol notices much more frequently and told to move further away or threatened with section 8 when returning to the canal. The EA has recently taken to evicting boats after only 4-5 days stay, and sometimes with police escort. Oxford Council has tried, and sometimes been successful, in getting local landowners to put up "No Mooring" signs in areas where boats have previously moored. At the same time there are no new moorings being established in Oxford. The last CRT mooring to be auctioned off went for £6005/year. That was an Agenda 21 mooring, which is ironic, since these moorings where established with a policy to promote sustainable development and affordable housing . I think these factors all have contributed to the "Boat people in land grab" situation that is described in the Oxford Mail. Shame that none of it is mentioned in the article.

I found this thread as I am looking to rent a mooring, and as I didn't know what "shill bidding" was, I looked it up. "Shill Bidding:It is an international fake bidding by the seller to increase the price of his own item that is up for bid. This is done by the sellers themselves making bids on their own items purposely to increase the price of his item." http://www.tutorhunt.com/resource/5964/ It is CRT who is the seller of these moorings, right? So if they were shill bidding, the incentive to stop that from happening would not be likely. It seems that the type of auction fraud that is being described in this thread is actually "Multiple Bidding". Unless I am missing something and some people actually think that CRT are bidding in their own auctions to increase the price.

Maybe he isn't insured, and was put off by the first comments all mentioning the insurance company. Or maybe he doesn't have a straight forward life and is therefore reluctant to post the name and exact whereabouts of his sunken narrow boat. Hope he gets sorted.