magpie patrick

This is the problem of definition isn't it - I think the District Line falls into Churchill's hippopotamus category - we know one when we see it.

Gin?, GIN????? This is Wigan, my ancestors from Appley Bridge will be turning in their grave!!!!

There has been a recent case where licence fee is regarded as rent for benefit purposes for liveaboard boaters who are eligible for benefits I would regard myself as being a bit of a progressive lefty but I really can't see any justification for a rebate on licence fees if the boat is not your home Demand is not sufficiently inelastic to allow wopping increases, even phased over a number of years, and anything other than wopping increases isn't going to fix CRT's revenue problem I want lower income groups to have access to waterways, but that is achieved by having many forms of access: boat hire, canoes, walking etc

Pipe? Culvert? A lot of new "bridges" on canal restoration schemes are technically box culverts as that describes their construction I would give some latitude on Galton et al though - as they are below ground level, a trench was created, a pipe inserted and then the trench filled in - in the case of Galton there was around 150 years between these events though... That was what I had wondered, whether one on the Trent and Mersey was older

See the caption - Holten has written the definitive work of the 21st century on the Boyne - I am not fit to lace his boots. I also have the O'Neil report of 1970 - arguably the definitive work of the 20th century on the Boyne Navigation. He also refers to Scraggy Rock Arch. Often it's just known as Rock Arch or Scraggy Arch. By your definition it's a 5 metre long tunnel

I think it's more subtle than that - especially for the historian questions was it tunnelled under a natural feature -if so it's a tunnel Is it a LOT longer than it's width and height? - if so it may be a tunnel (or possibly a culvert) Is there much fill between the roof of the "tunnel" and the surface above - if the roof and the surface above are the same structure then it's not a tunnel

Don't trust Wikipedia - I'm working with Meath County Council and An Taisce - it's Scraggy Rock Arch. Also, on the 1900 25inch map it's referred to as a tunnel

I didn't word that well Of the claim that Dunsley is the oldest and the shortest navigable tunnel - it's the oldest part that I would question, I'm pretty sure there is nothing shorter, but there may well be something older

It's the older I'd probably question - but I think not being allowed in makes them un-navigable!

When is in neither? I'm struggling to define the Scraggy Rock Arch on the Boyne - it isn't a bridge as it doesn't carry anything, it isn't really a tunnel as it's too short, although if it were it would be the only one on the Irish Waterways and on a river navigation to boot. I think it's like Winston Churchill's hippopotamus - difficult to define but easily recognisable. eta in reponse to the OP, I don't know that Dunsley is either the shortest or the oldest, but I can't name any other contenders at the moment

I think one can cut some slack for things said after an incident like that - unpleasant as it may be the small boat skipper has just been subject to a threatening experience. If he'd thrown something that would be a red card, but responding with angry words is understandable if not excusable. He also comments in the video that his boat has hit the bottom.

I think there would be a lot of defaulting - most boat owners (especially leisure boaters) can afford a boat but are not loaded - if they were they'd find another hobby

I'm saying you don't understand the issue - it's not that I don't like your solution, it's that it won't work

There have been studies that have looked at licence fees and other ways of extracting money from boaters and others - obvious ones are mooring fees and marina connection charges for example. Demand is to some extent inelastic because a boat is a fixed asset that isn't easy to offload in a hurry, so in the short term you can get away with whopping great increases, but in the long term it doesn't work, because numbers do go down albeit gradually, and CRT (and others) already have a bit of a problem with boats that not only aren't licensed but won't be because of cost and BSS requirements - whack the charges up and 3 or 4 years down the line that problem will multiply. Given this cut-off (the curve of indifference) the benefit of big licence fee rises is questionable - if you whack up licence fees by 100%, and ten years later the number of boaters has reduced by half (I'm using these figures to make the maths easier) then you end up where you started in revenue terms but with fewer boaters - who has benefitted? Also fewer boaters means less spend by boaters means a contraction in canal related businesses with consequent job losses. What is needed is a funding model that recognises the economic benefit of the canals that the navigation authority can't capture. Charging boaters ever increasing amounts doesn't achieve this. Yes, but you don't the honeypot benefit without the network

I've cruised most of the system - I'm also running a business that advises on tourism and visitor economics and is regularly commissioned to evaluate the benefits (or otherwise) or canals, rivers, steam railways etc