Peter X

It's nice to hear of CRT sounding determined that they won't let a debt pile up again, but unless the liquidator or the Insolvency Service go after PL, he'll have got away with his rip-off. Can you remember, did CRT elaborate as to why they "have to be even handed", why they "cannot" impose extra requirements for Steadman/PL/RR? I'm still waiting for someone to answer the question I posed weeks ago; the debt ceases to exist when the liquidator finishes his work, but if CRT simply arbitrarily refuse to grant an NAA for the site until £215,000 is forthcoming from someone, under what law can Steadman make them? Is there perhaps something about this in the wording of the rules CRT were given when set up in 2012?

Let's face it, the topic has gone quiet lately because no information of note has emerged since the much-expected news that the liquidator has disclaimed the freehold back to Mr Steadman. The improving weather probably means that those intent upon getting their boats out before April 14th will gradually do so, but that won't be much of an indicator really because anyone who likes the marina itself has little to lose by hanging on until the last weekend, and the CRT have said it'll be possible to get out (one way) up to the end of May. Of course a mini-rush could develop if some popular marina in the area gets down to its last few spare spaces. Both sides seem to be sticking to their position, and the CRT probably see no point in continually re-stating theirs when it hasn't changed. Meanwhile PL still seems to hope that boaters can be persuaded to blame CRT, and Mr Steadman is keeping a lower profile than Lord Lucan, not that I would see some dodgy accounting and an inability to choose a good marina manager as in any way comparable to murder/manslaughter. It's entirely possible that he's conducting off the record negotiations with CRT to try to reach a deal, I would if I were in his position, but I'm sure there is no deal agreed yet, because if there were it would be announced very quickly.

I don't know whether there would be enough demand for such a service, but if you have the technical ability to produce the same quality results as your competitors at a lower cost, a realistic business plan without too much risk, and most importantly you think you can market the service effectively, then why not go for it? If it were me I'd be looking for a way to dip my toe in the water first, maybe lining up some potential customers before investing too much money in machinery etc. or giving up a day job. As you're already making your top boxes I'm guessing you have a certain amount of tools and machinery already, and maybe it's possible to build up in stages to doing larger projects. Putting all the equipment and materials on a boat and doing it as a roving trader may sound like a Walter Mitty idea, but I can see some advantages to that provided that it fits your personal circumstances and you'd have enough space to fit yourself in too, plus Mrs Doodlebug if any, or someone else to assist you. It might be possible to get a government-subsidised apprentice even, if you can find some young person with the right blend of lunacy, some practical ability and sense of adventure. I don't know whether you have a boat already, but maybe you should start by buying a suitable used one and applying your skills to fit it out for the purpose? You'd have lower overheads than a land-based rival, and you can literally meet your customers halfway, just moor up next to them and measure up the boat yourself so you know it's been done properly and the units will fit.

In common with many people who've replied to this topic, I wouldn't want the CRT to spend any significant amount of money to make it easier for the elderly and infirm to continue boating, mainly because their central purpose should be the long term survival of the canal system, and they might face a major financial crisis in the coming years if the portion of CRT's income which comes from government funding gets cut back. That said, the CRT needs to maximise its income from licences, and as I've argued on another topic I think the sustainable way to do that is to try to increase the number of boats so that licence fees don't have to rise too much. So if there are easy things they can do to help people who find lock gates etc. difficult, to enable them to continue boating, why not? In my own limited experience, crewing occasionally on my brother's narrowboat, it seems to be the convention that people help single-handed boaters where possible, and the skipper doesn't mind a little delay while I wind an extra paddle or two for someone. I'm 58 but in good health and I like operating locks, but then I haven't yet done a long flight of them in the rain... certainly sometimes it's nice after an hour's gentle exercise along the towpath to get back aboard and make the teas. As I understand it, the CRT are steadily increasing the numbers of volunteers at locks, which is of course a cheap way to make it easier for the oldies to get around. Also, if I had a boat and was struggling to do a journey, I'd be looking to press-gang a friend or relative, or maybe even a total stranger, to come along for the necessary period. Do people generally find it difficult to get crew?

Further to the above, and at the risk of stating the obvious, the best form of defence is a legal attack, on as many fronts as are available to you. Banners are good, but stick carefully to the truth because that's a defence against libel. If they're breaking food hygiene regulations, report that too. But most of all, gather evidence that they're still trading despite an enforcement notice and press the council and police to prosecute. An independent witness of good standing who's willing to turn up in court is always good quality evidence. The relevant law for the council/police to use, which they should already know of course, is the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 section 179, which provides for big fines: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/8/section/179 Fans of the Pillings Lock topic will know I do love to help the underdog as an amateur lawyer.

Wigan is a long way from South London, so it won't be me, but whoever can turn up on the day, I hope they use the old joke: May the 4th be with you.

Not silly at all, the answer to your question was there in my post, Transport Act 1962. In an earlier post #3761 I referred to, I explained how I relied upon section 43 of the Act http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/10-11/46/section/43 to argue that the CRT can impose virtually any condition they like for a new NAA. The non-existence of the debt is irrelevant! So then the new company would need to answer my question or pay up. Can you answer it?

Certainly the debt will no longer exist when the IP finishes his work, but as I discussed in posts #3761 and #3871, that should not prevent CRT from holding No. 750 Leicester Ltd to ransom using their powers under the Transport Act 1962. I repeat my question from the latter post, which I don't think you or anyone else has answered since: [adding on £30,00 for Apr-Dec 2013] under what law could that new owner compel CRT to grant a new NAA without payment of the £215,000?

Mike, I agree that the various attempts at answers you've had from myself and others have been unsatisfactory. So I've had a bit of a dig and the best I can find is this article in which the IP's trade association attempts to explain why they're worth paying lots of money for what they do: https://www.r3.org.uk/media/documents/policy/policy_papers/corporate_insolvency/R3_IPs_Fees_Paper_D3_.pdf This document doesn't fully answer your question, but my reading of it is that in the Pillings Lock case Mr Steadman will have to pay the bill as the secured creditor. It also asserts that sometimes an IP doesn't get paid. I just looked up the documentation from my last encounter with an IP in 2012, when my limited company was the second biggest (by a very long distance!) unsecured creditor of a software company which went into Creditor's Voluntary Liquidation. There was no secured creditor, and the biggest creditor was a very rich man who'd invested a few million into the business and lost it all. I got paid because a phoenix company wanted the database and the people who understood it, and I think they must have paid all the IP's fees. Just as well considering that the IP was PriceWaterhouseCoopers and their lowest hourly rate, for "Secretarial/other support staff", was £112 per hour. Yet when I turned up to the creditor's meeting at their extremely flashy office in London, the receptionist had great difficulty in directing me to the correct meeting room despite the fact that I had my invitation letter! Not a £112 per hour performance. The result was that several seriously expensive people were twiddling their thumbs for nearly 30 minutes before I appeared, because no other creditor was present and they told me by law such a meeting cannot start until either one turns up or some period of time has elapsed. Of course this was pwc in London, a different world, and Mr Nelson and his staff will come rather cheaper. Mr Nelson does indeed have a duty to examine the conduct of Paul Lillie and can opt to either go to court himself or pass his findings to the Insolvency Service (a government body) who may then choose to prosecute PL. See: https://www.gov.uk/company-director-disqualification

Fair enough in that his used boat was already on the water and licenced. However, indirectly if enough new boaters come along, those with more money or a preference for a new boat will buy new, and others will soak up the available used boats, ultimately generating revenue. While I agree that It would be hopelessly optimistic of me to think that extra boaters can close the whole funding gap in the near future, I hope we can agree that CRT and other interested parties should be doing what they can to attract them, because it offers a way to reduce the gap and any harm to the canal network that a future cut in government funding would cause. Being optimistic again, perhaps all those rich people buying up prime London property can be persuaded to enjoy weekends on a nice shiny new narrowboat, just short enough to fit in all the locks, based in a marina up north? Somehow London's wealth needs to be spread out to create real jobs in the rest of the country, and paying someone in Stoke or wherever to build a boat is as good a way as any. Extra boats would indirectly create other employment too. The only figures I've seen for numbers of licenced boats were those I mentioned from the Pillings Lock topic, showing some increase for the period 2007-11, which included the crash (I'm guessing here that GFC=Global Financial Crash??). Does anyone know of other relevant statistics?

I'm no engineer, but was it all a cunning Nazi plan to waste British engineers' time and divert them from re-armament work?

The OP was only pointing out that, assuming the same numbers of boats, the licence would have to double in price to cover a withdrawal of the government subsidy. The post seemed to me to just put this notion out there without endorsing it, to ask what effect this would have and what could be done about the CRT's finances long term. It's reasonable to suppose that if the cost of a licence soared in the coming years, say by 20% above inflation for each of the next 4 years, a majority would pay but some would abandon boating as too costly. The number of boats up for sale would rise and the prices they fetch would fall, although some would move off to non-CRT waters. At best the number of boats paying licence fees to CRT would be static, and it might fall. It's quite plausible that the result would be a downward spiral of fewer boats paying higher fees, leading to the least used parts of the system being closed as too expensive to maintain. That's a pretty bleak picture, which leads me to the conclusion that getting more people boating is at least part of the answer. Public access to the towpath is a condition imposed by the government, and the CRT has no power to take it away. To abolish it would probably require an Act of Parliament, and simply won't happen and must not happen. Apart from depriving all those taxpayers of their enjoyment of a national asset, a ban would be very bad for boaters because the presence of the public on the towpath makes it safer. If Parliament were daft enough to ban the public, the criminals would ignore the ban and break into boats with impunity because the law-abiding people were not there to see them.

I'm not quite sure what "pragmatic solution" and "statement" you're referring to here, so I'll have to guess. In your post #4011 you seemed to mean by "pragmatic solution" that the CRT would end up having to write off the debt, hold their nose and let No. 750 Leicester Ltd have a new NAA. People shot this down because they feel the CRT cannot afford to set such a precedent. Just because Mr Steadman has been handed back the freehold by the IP and we are told that he intends to sell it to the new company, that doesn't mean the CRT have caved in, I'll believe that when I see it. It does suggest that Mr Steadman thinks a deal will be possible, but for all we know such a deal may involve someone coughing up the debt, or Mr Steadman may be mistaken. What else can the CRT do? They don't need to do much. As I and various others have said, while PLM's income slows to a trickle the CRT only have to wait, blockade the entrance as per their latest statement, then maybe wait a bit longer until the penny drops in Mr Steadman's mind and he caves in. He needs a NAA much more badly than the CRT need to grant it to him. Meanwhile press the IP to investigate PL, and perhaps Mr Steadman too, for trading while insolvent, and hopefully get PL barred as a company director. Lower deck lawyers? If a boat has more than one deck, how does it get under the low bridges? It wouldn't be able to use much of CRT's waters, but still more than Pillings Lock moorers in the near future.

If the number of licensed boats can be increased I can't see how more than about 10% of the extra revenue would go in costs. The maintenance cost of the system surely bears little relation to the number of boats, and depends mostly on time and weather? For example a major cost like an embankment collapse is going to be down to weather and would happen anyway. Lock gates wear out anyway because you have a big lump of wood sitting in water, and so on. I saw some figures on the Pillings Lock topic, put there to refute Paul Lillie's claim that projected numbers of boats provided by BW were an overestimate, which showed that the number of licensed boats had increased by some thousands in the period 2007-2011. My guess, and no I don't have the hard information to back it up, is that with the right marketing by the various parties (CRT, the hire companies, the marinas and tourist boards), an increase of as many as 2000 boats per year is not impossible. That may not be enough to make government subsidy unnecessary, but would go some way towards that target. There do appear to be quite a lot of secondhand boats up for sale, but at least that'll keep down the entry cost! My brother didn't splash out on a shiny new boat, he bought secondhand then spent a few grand having it repaired.

To me, another major development seems possible at any time. If I were in Mr Steadman's position, I'd be seriously considering replacing PL as director of PLM with someone who's better at getting on with people. And cheaper: a salary of around £30,000 ought to be enough to attract a candidate with some experience of customer service who knows enough to run a marina competently? This simple change would probably smooth the process of negotiating the NAA no end too.

This topic deserves more attention than it's had so far. The OP effectively asked the important question, how should CRT be looking to balance its books in the medium to long term and will the cost of a boat licence have to soar to make it possible, with the attendant risk that this might choke off demand and therefore not produce the extra income CRT might have hoped for? I feel disappointed that no one answered my post #36, in which I thought I raised some pertinent related questions. Essentially I argue that CRT needs to draw more people into boating, and that outside London and some other popular areas there must be plenty of space to put all the extra boats. My boating experience is fairly limited so far, but I'd like to hear what people who've travelled more of the network think might be possible. My brother and his wife started out by hiring boats for holidays a few years ago, decided they liked it and wanted to do more, then bought their own boat which they keep in a marina in the Midlands (not Pillings Lock!) and use at weekends and for the occasional longer trip. It's a long way from South London but worth the trip. It seems to me that CRT should be encouraging a lot more people along that sort of path, because more boats bought and licensed means money to maintain the network and perhaps restore more of the disused canals. It would also help the boatbuilders and other businesses to prosper, and maybe the extra traffic would even improve security which I gather is a problem in some urban areas. Suggestions please as to exactly what CRT could be doing?

Mr Steadman may not want to pay CRT, via whatever structure of companies he's using at the time, but I think he'll have to as I said "because it restores his crucial mooring income". At present the short term moorings income, from people who are paying monthly while they await events, is paid to PLM. But I think little or none of that was paid by PLM to QMP, before or after the liquidator took over in late January, because I believe that PLM holds a very advantageous lease on the site. My reasoning for this is set out in post #3565. Now that Mr Steadman owns the freehold, encumbered by the various leases I listed in post #4141, until he sells it again any rent that is due from PLM under its lease will be paid to Mr Steadman personally.

I think the letter's meaning is clear; people seem to have missed the crucial words "being the freehold land". QMP's "interest" in the property always was its ownership of the freehold of the whole site, subject to Mr Steadman's mortgage, and as mayalld said in #4128, the liquidator has disclaimed the freehold as onerous property and handed it over to Mr Steadman, as many of us predicted. Mr Steadman's freehold is encumbered by the lease of most of the site to PLM, which doesn't matter because via QMH's 100% shareholding Mr Steadman controls PLM. It is also encumbered by the 20 long term leases of car park spaces with associated mooring rights, and I would imagine explicit or implied rights to access the canal network which Mr Steadman may have difficulty providing after 14th April. It may also be encumbered by a lease for the boat repair business, or they may have a sub-lease from PLM, I don't know which.

Phantasm: Yes, we're both right in what we say. Both QMP and PLM qualify as small companies and thus have no need for an audit or to file full 'statutory' accounts at Companies House for the public to see, however they do have to file abbreviated accounts which provide more limited information, basically a balance sheet showing the asset values at year end, but not the income and expenses during the year which led to those balances. The liquidator will of course see full up to date information for QMP, because by law all its assets and financial documents must be handed over to him upon his appointment.

In my post #4085 I said: The more who exit, the greater the pressure on Mr Steadman to cave in and pay up. To clarify this in the light of later posts, what I had in mind was that Mr Steadman would get the freehold back from the liquidator then have an off the record chat with CRT along the lines of "If I elbow Paul Lillie out of the picture, and No. 750 Leicester Ltd gets the freehold, pays the whole past debt to CRT and always pays its fees bang on time in future (on pain of having its access to the network cut off forthwith), would it get a NAA?". Not a charitable donation, just a commercial transaction with Mr Steadman accepting implicitly that he and Paul Lillie had been wrong not to pay from QMP. This would, I suggest, be the best outcome Mr Steadman can realistically hope to get because it restores his crucial mooring income and PL is expendable. And it should be acceptable for the CRT despite the continued involvement of Mr Steadman as a shadow director, because they get their money, both the debt and the future fees, and the deal sends out the right message to any other marina owner thinking of trying it on. It's been said before that the PLM company year ends in June, so because accounts have to be filed with Companies House within 9 months for any private limited company, the accounts for 2012-13 are due by the end of this month. I think those accounts only have to talk about the company's situation up to June 2013, so need not mention the CRT's court case and any possible blockade.

Agreed, so... The thought occurred to me the other day, will some of the moorers who decide to leave, some of whom may have been static a long time, be having difficulties with some of the following? (a) getting their engine etc. ready in time. Of course the boat repair business on the site may well be able to help with this? ( b ) finding crew to accomplish the move. Probably not too hard? ( c ) finding an alternative marina or other mooring to suit their needs; what spaces do nearby marinas have? (d) suing PLM for breach of contract? If anyone is having such difficulties, I'd suggest they seek help in the relevant section of this forum, and that contributors to this topic and/or the many others watching it will feel moved to help in whatever way they are able. I'd also like to think that CRT will be happy to advise boaters on how to escape as April 14th approaches. The more who exit, the greater the pressure on Mr Steadman to cave in and pay up. On a related subject, the other day I saw that PLM lists 6 boats for sale. Should any of those remain unsold by 14th April, will PL be keeping them on the lake in accordance with his public statements?

I'd be cautious about reading too much into this. A director might be paid a lot, a little or sometimes nothing for holding a post. The first 8 of the 9 companies listed above sound to me as if they might be parts of the CRT empire where Philip Ridal is the CRT's representative on the board. If that is so it wouldn't surprise me if those 8 companies pay him nothing and his salary comes from CRT. Aquamanta Ltd seems to be something to do with fishkeeping, registered at a nice little house in Richmond. Nothing to do with CRT? He's held a lot of directorships before, but that doesn't tell us whether he was overpaid for whatever he did there. And when a company is dissolved, there may or may not have been any wrongdoing, and if there was each individual director may or may not have been responsible. Basically the information doesn't in itself say anything bad about Mr Ridal.

JerryP, on 03 Mar 2014 - 10:56 PM, said: I must confess I may have created some confusion in my post #3315 by saying: DeanS (#3312): The CRT were very sniffy in their statement about the Roy Rollings phoenix company, No. 560 Leicester Ltd I think it's called. They've looked at its DNA and decided it's a no. 2. Anyone recommended by PL is unlikely to get a NAA. I didn't bother to check the number 560, but I meant whichever company the CRT statement had referred to. Must've been 750.

I'm going to be a bit controversial here. In among all the rubbish emanating from PL and his apparent spokesman CSH, there are actually one or two points which may be valid... He says he's been paid a salary of £60,000 (far too much in a business which doesn't pay an important creditor, whether the salary came from PLM or QMP), but that the manager of a BWML marina gets £89,000. If true, isn't that too much too? It's a responsible job involving various knowledge and experience, and even with the advantage of not paying for the NAA which most(?) BWML marinas enjoy, the manager will need a certain ability to run it successfully. However I'd have thought about £50,000 for a fairly good performance at that level of management would be an adequate rate. He says BW painted an over-rosy picture of a possible return on investment of up to 18%. Of course it was up to Mr Steadman and the Lillies to do their own business plan and nobody takes seriously a broadband supplier talking about a transfer rate of up to x, so again there's no excuse for Paul Lillie. But has any new marina in recent years achieved 18% or somewhere near? I think the land plus building cost for Pillings Lock was around £4.5m, which if there are 300 berths works out at £15,000 per berth. So to get a return of 18% at full occupancy (they did say "up to" so this hypothetical fantasy marina has 100% occupancy; some marinas actually do?), each berth needs to make £2,700 profit per year after taking off VAT, NAA, marina staff and other costs. There's some income from the café, the boat repairers and miscellaneous services, but they'd have to be charging well over £3,000pa in mooring fees surely? But I can just about believe that 18% might be possible if some lucky developer can get the right parcel of land near London at a good price. It would be amusing to see BW's calculations.

It'll be a pig to get to