Wanderer Vagabond
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Posts posted by Wanderer Vagabond
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A few points
1) Council tax is calculated on the value of your home. I'll leave you to ponder on the relative values of a flat in Camden and a springer.
2) Council tax benefit is available for those on low incomes. That must account for a few boat dwellers.
3) Council tax gets you a waste and a recycling bin, and collection.
4) For my friends living in yurts in woodland or trucks on a green Lane, a demand for council tax has had them rubbing their hands with glee. Paying council tax is next best thing to planning permission. And they get their rubbish collected!
Can you see why I think Camden borough council wouldn't touch this with a long shaft?
1) Council Tax is calculated on a banded system which is only nominally related to the value of your home, since the lowest band is A that is what they would put a boat in.
2) A lot of those living on their boats in London are not on the breadline, although some may be. Those who are may already qualify for housing benefit to pay for their licence, Those living on the breadline in shore based accomodation still have to pay, what is special about boaters?
3) You still have to take your rubbish to a location where the council can collect it since they are under no obligation to travel the towpath to collect you rubbish (much the same as rural dwellers have to take their rubbish to the nearest roadway if they live down a track).
4) The people I know on Haldon Hill in Devon living in the woods in caravans and coaches pay their council tax for which they get rubbish collection and a post code, so the problem would be?? At the moment there are people living permanently on the canal without planning permission, they will continue to live there without planning permission whether or not council tax is implemented so your analogy is spurious.
Yes this is what I was driving at. This is a system worth implementing.
I apologise for my arsy tone previously. I stacked the car and am having a bad week. Thats not anyone else's fault.
For charging council tax to work you would have to show that the boat had stayed within the same borough boundary for at least 12 months. This would mean constant monitoring or tagging the boat. I would guess that the first is too expensive, and the second theyre not allowed to do.
Once you had proven that each boat you were interested in had stayed for longer than 12 months you possibly could send out a bill for council tax.
How many boats suspected of staying in Islington for 12 months? 10? 20? 100?
You need daily surveillance to prove they havent moved out of the borough for even just one day. Then you would realistically get back results that a dozen at most stay over 12 months. Then you have to make them pay. Say you get lucky and all of them pay. Band A council tax in Islington is £840.
So 12 x 840 is 10 grand. This wont pay for the cost of the surveillance or setting up the system in the first place.
I'm not saying they shouldn't pay. But the reality is that making them pay is almost impossible.
If a council wished to create a solution, rather than your position of merely trying to create more obstructions, they would implement a 'voluntary' system whereby you register with them and pay electronically a notional sum (say £20 per week) for the duration of your stay. If however you choose to disregard the 'voluntary' option then they will come after you for a punitive rate of £50 per day to cover the costs involved in enforcement. Oddly enough that is a very similar system to the congestion charge, if you register you pay the daily fee, if you try to game them they hit you for £130, seems to work.
The point is that CRT do not have any power to stop as many people moving into London on their canals as may wish to come, why should the London boroughs allow them to use their facilities for free? Local residents can't so why should boaters?
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Erm, I don't really know where to start with this. The law commission, amongst others, draft legislation. They employ people and that costs money. Some of those people are lawyers. But let's just say for arguments sake that none of them are lawyers.
You originally stated that it doesn't cost money to draft legislation in. In fact, your question was 'since when do you have to pay for legislation?'
Then in this post you say that the government(?) (shady faceless types I assume?) draft legislation. Also BW drafted their own bill. So do loads of other groups.
My first and only question is:
Do you think they all do it for free?
ETA just one example of hundred...
Don't let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy though. If you take your tin foil hat off for long enough, you might find that the controlling radio waves they send out aren't so bad after all.
Rather than get bogged down in the nuance of how legislation is drafted perhaps we should point out that it is utterly irrelevant to the point I was originally making. People who choose to live permanently in a given area (whether on boats or land based) should have to pay the local council for the facilities that they enjoy. Since London brought in a traffic congestion charge, which would be a whole lot more difficult and expensive to administer than collecting council tax from resident boaters, I believe that they are quite capable of organising the latter if they so choose. Despite your facetious comment there is no suggestion of any conspiracy (except perhaps in your mind), perhaps you can give me a good reason why permanent residents on boats in a given area should freeload on the land based residents re local services? Or do you consider that some sort of 'conspiracy'?
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You don't think it costs money to bring new legislation in? Who pays for the lawyers to draft the legislation then? Who pays for the studies to see if it's warranted? Who pays for the consultation with about a billion different interested parties?
On this note, there was a case a few years ago, i'll try to find it, where a guy living in north Devon who had moored his tug boat up for a year was found liable for council tax. But the judge in this case said that over 12 months seemed fair. So doing it on a month pro rata basis seems unlikely even if it were not for the cost of implementing it.
ETA
http://www.legalrss.co.uk/bsg/tub-boat-dweller-must-pay-council-tax
You seem to have a very naive view on how legislation is drafted. You will find that both this government and the last government draft masses of unnecessary legislation with only limited consultation with actual interested parties. Who, for instance actually wanted Police Crime Commissioners? and yet here we have them, a totally pointless tool at a cost of millions (and that was just for the election of them). And if lawyers actually drafted legislation perhaps we wouldn't end up with such crap, equivocal laws (a bit like the 1995 British Waterways Act really!) or perhaps they do draft legislation for the sole purpose of keeping themselves in work for the future.
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They don't have to pay them a crap salary though...you seem to see it as a supply and demand issue...I see it as not sharing wealth...
I think that you need to come back to the real world. I don't particularly like the capitalist system but it seems that the majority of the UK population seem to like it so you'll have to live with what we've got, and sharing wealth has never had any place in a capitalist market. Those who already have wealth accumulate more by paying as little as they can get away with for what they require. The UK population also has a dislike of the Union movement which was probably the nearest were were likely to get to re-balance the inherent unfairness.
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...but they may have a job there...I think it does go back to the class divide problem...
Nothing to do with a class divide, if he has a job there he lives there, yes? If he lives there why should he be exempt from council tax when someone struggling to live in land based accommodation under exactly the same circumstances still has to find the money? You seem to repeatedly fail to answer this question.
I would also suggest that if he/she has a job that pays so badly they are part of the problem since whilst employers can find people to work for such crap wages in London they will continue to pay them. It is only when no-one will work for wages that bad before employers will have to start paying the Living Wage. The advantage that a liveaboard has is that they don't have to live in London, they can take their boat somewhere else. If on the other hand he/she is relying on Housing Benefit to pay for the likes of their licence, then they should also be contributing to Camden Council, or is there a reason why not?
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Ok so boater is on breadline but coping and along comes the council who then gets the boater to fill in the forms the councillor then pays the boaters licence for him charges the boater council tax and then pays the council tax .who are the losers the council and the residents of that area .
another scenario is that boater cannot then afford to pay to live on the boat so council then have to house him .
Or perhaps he could just move on out of the borough?
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There you go, you have no idea, so end of that one.
Good luck with your lobbying :-)
That has to be about as close to a non-argument as it is possible to get. You hadn't got anything to say so that is what you said, nothing!
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See my last post..and maybe some of those before that...It seems some of you are missing the point...
The 'point' that you claim to be making isn't valid, that is why I am not seeing it. As I said in the original post, provided that these people are not making use of any of the facilities of Camden then they wouldn't be freeloading but once they want to access the facilites (like housing benefit) then it is only reasonable that they should contribute to the council area in which they live.
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It's so far out there, I can't believe you can seriously be suggesting implementation. However, just to humour, how much would each council have to fork out to (1) sort the legislation needed, and (2) sort the logistics for collection and monitoring.
To be honest, this is getting to silly to debate really. It's not even close to dealing with the issues in hand.
Since when did you have to pay for legislation? I thought that paying for that sort of thing was sort of...corrupt. If they saw it as a viable income stream (10 boats = over £1000 per month) I wouldn't think it would be beyond the wit of an area that managed to impose a congestion charge on motorists. And yes it would start to deal with some of the issues since those in Camden who may complain of the smoke and engine/generator noise of the moored boats would be told that they are paying for the privilege.
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...perhaps they can't afford to due to their situation....now what are you going to do with them?
I'm sorry but that's not really an excuse is it? There are loads of land based people who also struggle to pay their percentage of the council tax and they get taken to court for it, so why not Continuous Moorers? All I would argue for is a bit of consistency since I despise those who have properties in 1 Hyde Park who don't pay Council tax, I despise Amazon and Starbucks and the other multinationals who don't pay tax, I can hardly therefore say it is OK for those living on the cut to avoid paying their taxes just because they are 'one of us'. If they want to live in a particular area either pay the local tax or move on.
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If we're going to argue about the pronunciation of LLangollen it's probably best if we keep away from Pontcysyllte then
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I don't love to bash a boater with a home mooring at all, what an ignorant oaf you make of yourself by saying that.
I worry that a council would actually give the CCer's a miss owing to the difficulties in administering and collecting a tax, and choosing to go with the easy option instead, collecting from boats moored in a marina, or on a home mooring.
Why do you worry that a council (let us say Camden as an example) would give Continuous Moorers a miss? Since they and most others councils are now seriously strapped for cash where would be the difficulty? They could send someone to check the boats on the Canal within their borough and those who had remained for more that a month could be billed for 1/12 of the annual Band D (£1320 p.a. or £110 per month). That would seem a fair solution to me and, if I were in the position of wanting to live in Camden (as an ex-Londoner I don't), it would seem to be a reasonable amount to pay to access the facilities available. It would also counter quite reasonable resentment from the land based residents of Camden who may object to people otherwise freeloading on their facilities.
I don't see the councils going for the marina boats since they are already getting business rates from the marina owners so it could be argued that they would be getting a double take on it. I cannot however see any argument why anyone living in Camden, on a boat or otherwise, should not have to pay for the local facilities that they make use of.
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There's definitely p takers and I agree with your definition, just get bored with the finger being pointed at cc'ers all the time
Regards kris
Is the finger being pointed at Continuous Cruisers? or is it being pointed at Continuous Moorers?
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So, anyone with a boat in your local marina should pay council tax to cover the services they use, and if they are not living on it, pay second home council tax?
Anyone living on a boat in the local marina should pay Council Tax, yes. For just leaving the boat in the local marina, I would assume that the marina owner pays something towards the local council services so effectively it would be no different to me leaving my car on someone else's drive (with their permission) so I don't see that a second home council tax comes into play, unless of course they are living on it.
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'Freeloader', 'parasite', are strong words to use against law abiding citizens. Would you use these words face to face with those you take issue with?
You see this is this is the problem. As Rick said, people can say what they like here, but in the real world things are different. Have you actually walked up to some of these apparent freeloaders and parasites and told them what you think? I wonder if Rick talked to one of the apparent CC'ers and asked them if they could move or moor up next to them so he had easier access to the shops? I would have been happy to oblige if I was asked nicely and may well have offered him a beer.
It's all hot air, but remember there are other CC'ers who are ex-forces who would probably have an issue with being told they are hogging a mooring when they are actually complying with the rules. There really are some very jealous people on here, it's a shame really as I thought we all respected one other like we seem to on the cut.
For those wishing to permanently live in Camden without paying for the local services what polite term would you suggest? You pointedly failed to answer the question that if you want to live somewhere permanently why shouldn't you contribute to the Council Tax, why did you avoid the question? Do you support tax evasion? Since I wish to live in a society (rather than alone on a desert island) I am quite content to pay a fair tax for the privilege. I baulked against the Poll Tax because that was an unfair tax costing the low paid a far higher percentage of their income than the higher paid but I do accept the necessity for me to pay for the local services that I enjoy. Why should constant moorers be exempt?
Adding to that....for many of the thousands of CC'ers (maybe most), their boat is an affordable home. Money is an issue for the less fortunate and the saving on paying for a permanent mooring and council tax is significant. If they are forced off the waterways due to draconian changes in the rules who do you think will pick up the bill?
I should point out that some council services are covered by the boat licence fee. (eg maintenance, disposal of waste)
I know someone personally who was driven out of a residential mooring by the council who then had to offer a flat because he was declared homeless. It's an own goal and a very cruel one because he enjoyed the waterway lifestyle. Is this what you want?There are also a lot of people living in land based accomodation who financially may prefer not to pay council tax but they don't have the option. This pretty unpleasant coalition government are forcing those living on the breadline to pay a percentage,
What 'maintenance' Council Services are covered by the boat licence? Disposal of waste is dealt with by contractors for CRT and they will have to pay commercial rates to dispose their waste at landfill. I don't think you will find that CRT pay local councils for maintenance of local facilities so the benefit to local councils is zero. There are a lot of people living in land based accomodation who would financially prefer not to pay council tax particularly since this unpleasant coalition government has even insisted that those on the breadline have to pay a percentage, so why should permanent residents of an area who just happen to be living on the cut be exempt?
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I think that the point that is missed with this Continuous Moorer lark is that basically they are freeloading on the Council Area in which they choose to Bridge Hop. If I were a Land Based resident of Camden paying my Band C Council tax of £1173 p.a. I think I would feel pretty hacked off, given the cuts that central government have made to local funds, in having a bunch of free-loaders moored at the bottom of my garden contributing nothing to the services supplied by the local council. Of course it would be fine if they also didn't make any demands upon the local council, like not calling the Fire Service if their boat catches fire, not calling the Police if it is burgled and of course not using any of the local services (Libraries,Swimming Pools, Schools, etc) but somehow I don't think that will be the case, will it?
The reason that it is considered polite to obtain a residential Mooring if you are going to live permanently in a given area (which is, after all what Bridge hoppers do) is so that you financially contribute to the area in which you choose to live through Council Tax. If you decide that you don't want to pay Council tax then effectively you are just a parasite to the area.
As the hypothetical resident of Camden I would have no objection to a genuine visitor temporarily staying on a Visitor Mooring, much the same as I would welcome any other temporary visitor staying in temporary land based accomodation, but if you want to live there permanently why shouldn't you contribute your share of Council Tax?
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Mine came with the boat so I can say that I'm a bit impartial since if it didn't work it hasn't cost me anything and if it did work then it's a bonus. So having established my impartial credentials I would have to say that when I first saw it working my thought was how can it do anything constructive just turning at that speed (it doesn't whizz round just turns at about 60 rpm so not at fast as the old 78 records!). So it would be fair to say I was sceptical however if the fire cools enough for it to slow down or stop the temperature in the room does fall noticeably not just accounted for by the lower fire temperature. I think if I were buying one I'd be put off by the price which I can't understand since the only moving part of the gadget is the motor and that is only £15 so how does the rest of it conjure up a price of £99??
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It's a thoroughly bad idea, and I very much hope that others aren't doing it.
We are fortunate to live in a country where we can travel freely and live our lives without being under daily personal surveillance by secretive and sinister Government agencies constantly demanding that we account for our movements and carry papers authorising us to be wherever we are. Are you really suggesting that anyone should do anything which may just give ideas to a failing navigation authority that has already displayed the inclination to behave in a high handed, unreasonable and dictatorial manner, to introduce practices and methods that will contribute to even the slightest erosion of that precious freedom ? It could turn out to be the thin end of a very ominous wedge.
It does sound a bit like the same old record playing again. I don't think that British Waterways were exactly top of your Xmas Card list and now you wish for CRT to fail, I think that you need to be very careful what you wish for.
I certainly isn't beyond the ability of this (or the next) Government to offload the entire canal system onto a Private Company whose sole interest will be profit. They wont care what the numbers of boats are just as long as they get the money coming in, how would a yearly licence of £8000 sound? Yes it would create an exodus from the canals leaving them to those who could afford extortionate licence fees. Of course you may wish to argue that some law would prevent them from doing so (remind me, who writes the laws?). And if they couldn't offload the system they could just remove all funding from it (much as they are doing with Local Councils) all in the name of 'austerity'. So like I said you should be careful what you wish for!
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If both dog and owner were asleep when the fire started I would not be surprised if both were overcome by fumes before they ever woke up.
Its very common for people to think that they will be woken up by the smell or sound of fire. Its not true if they are sound asleep.
Like I say I don't really want to speculate as to what happened and as a sort of answer to my own question, I don't know how old the dog was. If it was an elderly dog then it would probably sleep through anything but you tend to find that younger dogs are very light sleepers and often wake up and bark when there is nothing there, they go mental when there is something.
I'll wait for the inquest result.
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I don't wish to offer any speculations or theories or anything such as that since I know nothing about the circumstances other than what is in the press. The one thing that gave me cause for thought today however was the issue relating to the man's dog which also died in the fire (if the press report is correct). Whilst sitting in my boat and listening to a dog in an adjacent boat complaining (barking) for being left alone it occurred to me that a dog would normally react quite loudly to smoke or fire on a boat. I will await with interest the conclusions of the inquest as to what happened on the boat leading up to the fire (if they can come to a conclusion since, by its very nature, fire tends to destroy a lot of evidence).
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I find the discussion of solar very interesting although at the moment it doesn't apply to me since all I have for power is the engine. My query however is that, since I am a CCer, would it actually worth it for me to get solar? During the summer period I am usually travelling around so the batteries will get charged anyway (plus the hot water). During the winter when there are more occasions when I might want to stay put (rain, ice etc) then it sounds like I wouldn't be generating enough from the panels without running the engine as well so, given the cost of installing solar, what would be the return on investment period? IS it actually worth it? Those I've spoken to with panels all enthuse about them and I'm normally keen on them, having fitted them on my land based property but then I get the FIT payment for that which is a sort of income. Given how little you seem to be generating during the period when I would actually need the most I'm still not decided whether it is worth it. I'd still have to run the engine for hot water.
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I once helped my friend working on the engine of his Fordson Major tractor, we had removed the inlet manifold with its throttle butterfly valve and needed to turn the engine over slightly so I took a quick stab at the starter motor. Big mistake, without the inlet manifold and butterfly valve which controlled the engine speed by throttling the amount of inlet air there was nothing to restrict it. The engine fired up and roared away, panic set in until I thought to shut the injector pump down, not a true runaway but enough to get the old adrenalin going!
Strange setup compared with todays stuff.
I had a similar experience several years ago in a Morris Marina van I was driving towards the Avonmouth Bridge on the M5. The throttle cable broke and instead of, as I would have expected, the butterfly closing if fell into the fully open position and the van suddenly accelerated like a mad thing. In a town it could easily have killed someone but since I was on the motorway I had time and space to deal with it. It was just a case of switch the engine off and coast to a halt, not a true runaway in the diesel sense but scary none the less
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It will probably be opened up on the 19th December (although worth checking with CRT) as CRT tend to skeleton staff over Christmas/New Year.
Moorings in that section are not plenty, maybe Deepfields or down the Bradley Arm, I would leave the boat further out (Autherley) and then go through Birmingham in a couple of days.
(actually I wouldn't, I would go Staffs Worcs and down the Severn, it's downhill and the next three weeks long term forecast shows no serious storm/rain events on the horizon)
Re the Severn route, I looked at that a few days ago when I was still trying to find a way out of Birmingham (I've given up now and am looking for moorings). The Environment Agency site wasn't particularly clear but I looked at this site http://www.cruisingschool.co.uk/location/river%20severn%20levels.htm and then the boards were borderline red. Now they seem to have dropped off a bit but I decided that it was a bit of a risky strategy going that way since you could get to the end of the Staffs & Worcs and then get red boarded stopping you getting out on the river.
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Sherbourne Wharf?
It you don't mind paying there is Sherebourne Wharf right in the centre.
Thanks for that one, it could be the lifesaver (not getting home for Christmas could have turned nasty!!)
Continual cruising
in General Boating
Posted
So how are council's supposed to pay for their reducing services in the face of Government cutbacks? Pluck a few quid off the money tree???
I don't think that Council Tax is a particularly horrible tax, I want the area in which I live to have reasonable services, and preferably a Fire Service and Police Force as well for which I am quite content to pay. Similarly I am quite content to pay my income tax and other taxes, it is all part of being a society. If I didn't want to do so I could go and live somewhere without any services (Rockall perhaps?). Tax only works if all parties pay their due, if on the other hand one group (let us call them Starbucks or Amazon for example) decide that tax isn't for them it opens the door for everyone else to adopt the same attitude, which is great, it just means that all those who may be in an unfortunate position (unemployed,ill or disabled) will find that there is no safety net and they then have the freedom to starve.