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Beale Park No Mooring


Dave123

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On 24/08/2020 at 18:55, OldGoat said:

Easy - if it were a licence on the Thames, but it's not, it's a registration. EA can't direct where you keep your boat or much else.

It costs so much to prosecute and it takes so long that the net result is that nothing happens.

so why do us mugs pay to use it. If we all flouted the rules they would quickly come up with a solution

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12 hours ago, Tonka said:

so why do us mugs pay to use it. If we all flouted the rules they would quickly come up with a solution

Time was when the British followed the rules rather than just ignoring them.

As the Thames is a strange anomaly its management was dumped on the Environment Agency who know about managing the water flow but norra lot about managing the boaters.

The net result is that if boaters stop paying the fees EA will stop maintaining the locks and 'we' will be the poorer for it.

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1 hour ago, matty40s said:

I am beginning to think these signs were put up as part of a contract surrounding the Reading Festival management of the public and boaters. Obviously, the festival was cancelled, but did the signage installers get cancelled too??

Beale Park is two locks and 'a couple of miles' further upstream from Reading and has never been of any interest to the festival goers. Or do you mean a deal for general sineage done between the  two event organisers??

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This is encouraging if it is Beale park that have removed the no mooring signs (and not boaters that removed them).

 

I emailed Beale park a month or so ago to ask more about the mooring ban, as rumours were starting to circulate on facebook that the ban was brought in because of boats overstaying, which just didn't make sense for several reasons. Surprisingly Beale park responded with a very nice and detailed email explaining that the ban was essentially because of rubbish left during the 'lockdown heatwave' period and cars blocking the lane at Lower Basildon. They made no mention of overstaying (I asked specifically about this) and reading between the lines I got the impression they knew the rubbish was almost entirely from people arriving by car, but were powerless to prevent access in this way, the only power they had was to ban moorings.

 

They said they very much hoped it would be temporary. I suggested the problem would resolve itself once the weather turned and people had more options of places to go with pubs opening etc. So I hope that the problem with rubbish has resolved itself and the park have quietly suspended the ban on mooring, having realised boats were not the main problem...?

Edited by Dave123
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20 hours ago, Mike Adams said:

I hope it is the case that you can moor there again now as we couldn't either way at the end of August. I feel really sorry for the hire boaters very little chance of getting a decent mooring after a days cruising as most of the decent moorings are now taken up by large boats who seem to move if at all first thing in the morning to the next location.

 

I couldn't believe how many large wide boats/dutch barges there are now on the river that seem to occupy most of the prime moorings. They don't seem to be in the process of recreational cruising as I think of it. Where do they come from and go to? Many of them are unmarked so difficult to trace so do they stay on the river the whole year or disappear off somewhere else. I can remember when I considered a dawncraft to be large and luxurious.

They presumably have a home mooring somewhere they use for winter, as the only way to CC on the Thames is with a CRT licence or Gold licence, which I don't *think* you can get without being able to go on CRT water and satisfy the CRT you are doing the necessary range etc? And they seem to big to do any cruising on CRT canals...?

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On 21/09/2020 at 16:22, Dave123 said:

They presumably have a home mooring somewhere they use for winter, as the only way to CC on the Thames is with a CRT licence or Gold licence, which I don't *think* you can get without being able to go on CRT water and satisfy the CRT you are doing the necessary range etc? And they seem to big to do any cruising on CRT canals...?

How so?

(Sadly) all EA are concerned about is that their licence  - registration fee is paid and sometimes I wonder about that!

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20 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

How so?

(Sadly) all EA are concerned about is that their licence  - registration fee is paid and sometimes I wonder about that!

Call me cynical, but I think there are a lot of boats on the Thames that are not licenced/registered.  I would suggest that some probably don’t have a BSS or insurance either.  Similar to the incessant speeding, which needs cracking down on, I don’t think the EA are really interested in enforcement.

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1 hour ago, john6767 said:

Call me cynical, but I think there are a lot of boats on the Thames that are not licenced/registered.  I would suggest that some probably don’t have a BSS or insurance either.  Similar to the incessant speeding, which needs cracking down on, I don’t think the EA are really interested in enforcement.

We’ve just been on the Thames until a few days ago.  We bought a week’s licence at Eynsham Lock having come off the Oxford; the lock keeper there was quite happy to sell us one (the website no longer says anything about doing it by phone).  When our week ran out, we tried to buy another day (which of course is actually two days), but failed to find any lock keeper who wanted to take our money.  One just shrugged, one directed us to the website, one said they weren’t doing them at the moment...  So it seems that right now, it’s almost impossible to give the EA money even if you want to.

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1 minute ago, adam1uk said:

We’ve just been on the Thames until a few days ago.  We bought a week’s licence at Eynsham Lock having come off the Oxford; the lock keeper there was quite happy to sell us one (the website no longer says anything about doing it by phone).  When our week ran out, we tried to buy another day (which of course is actually two days), but failed to find any lock keeper who wanted to take our money.  One just shrugged, one directed us to the website, one said they weren’t doing them at the moment...  So it seems that right now, it’s almost impossible to give the EA money even if you want to.

I wasn’t really meaning visitors from CRT waters, I would suggest most of them do buy a licence, or at least try to.  We were in a lock a few above Eynsham with a boat  and when challenged by the lock keeper played dumb, but all he could do was give them the phone number to call has he could not sell them.  If seems the main entry point locks can now do them as have seen lots of boats with the usual card in the window. 

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13 hours ago, adam1uk said:

We’ve just been on the Thames until a few days ago.  We bought a week’s licence at Eynsham Lock having come off the Oxford; the lock keeper there was quite happy to sell us one (the website no longer says anything about doing it by phone).  When our week ran out, we tried to buy another day (which of course is actually two days), but failed to find any lock keeper who wanted to take our money.  One just shrugged, one directed us to the website, one said they weren’t doing them at the moment...  So it seems that right now, it’s almost impossible to give the EA money even if you want to.

End of August and beginning of Sept we went from Duke's Cut up to Inglesham and back and no lock, including Eynsham, was able/willing to sell us a registration. One did tell us that we could do it by phone and gave us a number but then added, as an afterthought, that they were closed for the next two or three days! This was all very different from our previous, limited, experience of the Thames and so I am inclined to the view that it is a non-logical consequence of COVID-19 mixed up with some internal issues.

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14 hours ago, adam1uk said:

We’ve just been on the Thames until a few days ago.  We bought a week’s licence at Eynsham Lock having come off the Oxford; the lock keeper there was quite happy to sell us one (the website no longer says anything about doing it by phone).  When our week ran out, we tried to buy another day (which of course is actually two days), but failed to find any lock keeper who wanted to take our money.  One just shrugged, one directed us to the website, one said they weren’t doing them at the moment...  So it seems that right now, it’s almost impossible to give the EA money even if you want to.

The lockie at Eynsham is one of the 'characters' on the River. He loves his job and watches the antics of boaters whether in a narrowboat or some other craft.

You have to have a thick skin to be a lockie; they can get a lot of hassle from boaters and walkers (probably from the myriads of management folks in  the EA - being a government department there are lots of 'managers'.

Anyone reading this and still going on to the river before effective lockdown in early November - do talk to/with the lockies; they have a lot of local knowledge and are happy to spread it.

Be especially friendly to the keeper at Culham, it's rumoured that he is being retired at the end of the season having done the job man and boy for almost as long as there's been a navigation (!!)

Back on topic The EA have mebe over-reacted to the Virus (who wouldn't as the fuller implications are only now becoming aparrent), thus touching anything (boats, lines, money w.h.y) is a no-no - so takinng cash - no and handling a carsd machine, especially as the locks are isolated, thus even simple sanitization (? word) may be impractical, thus to some extent has made it not available. I guess that the difficulties of selling pumpout cards coupled with the cleaning of pipes and connectors effectively removes you the oportunity of using them. Most NBs use bucket-and-chuckit anyway...

51 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

End of August and beginning of Sept we went from Duke's Cut up to Inglesham and back and no lock, including Eynsham, was able/willing to sell us a registration. One did tell us that we could do it by phone and gave us a number but then added, as an afterthought, that they were closed for the next two or three days! This was all very different from our previous, limited, experience of the Thames and so I am inclined to the view that it is a non-logical consequence of COVID-19 mixed up with some internal issues.

See my comment about lockside virus considerations. Cash is a no-no and card machines similar, I guess.

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15 hours ago, john6767 said:

Call me cynical, but I think there are a lot of boats on the Thames that are not licenced/registered.  I would suggest that some probably don’t have a BSS or insurance either.  Similar to the incessant speeding, which needs cracking down on, I don’t think the EA are really interested in enforcement.

The difficulty about unregistered / untested boats is horrendous for EA. It has to go through the courts, this takes ages and costs a helluva lot - even the most blatant clusters of boats get away with it, as happened some 3-4 years ago. It's not a criminal offence; no right of arrest and the civil courts cost loadsa' monay. The only people who gain are the barristers....

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On 22/09/2020 at 17:56, OldGoat said:

How so?

(Sadly) all EA are concerned about is that their licence  - registration fee is paid and sometimes I wonder about that!

Yes I was referring to boats that have the proper registration/licence. I believe EA can only give you a permanent Thames registration if you have a home mooring. Only other option is a gold licence which involves CRT of course. Obviously some/many don't have anything.

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1 hour ago, Dave123 said:

Yes I was referring to boats that have the proper registration/licence. I believe EA can only give you a permanent Thames registration if you have a home mooring. Only other option is a gold licence which involves CRT of course. Obviously some/many don't have anything.

On a point of information -

EA do ask for a home mooring - but they don't check it. I have a feeling that it was just for statistics or 'information' .

When we were on the Wey we just put Pyrford ( you don't need a Thames mooring to register).

FWIW the Gold licence is very good value if your home mooring is on CRT waters but (can be) poor value for a boat on the Thames. Somebody in the EA cocked up the calculations and now it's set in stone.

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18 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

On a point of information -

EA do ask for a home mooring - but they don't check it. I have a feeling that it was just for statistics or 'information' .

When we were on the Wey we just put Pyrford ( you don't need a Thames mooring to register).

FWIW the Gold licence is very good value if your home mooring is on CRT waters but (can be) poor value for a boat on the Thames. Somebody in the EA cocked up the calculations and now it's set in stone.

So does a Gold licence cost more If the home mooring is on an EA waterway?  You could just get a Gold licence with no home mooring then presumably CRT would charge you the same as with a mooring on a CRT waterway.

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31 minutes ago, john6767 said:

So does a Gold licence cost more If the home mooring is on an EA waterway?  You could just get a Gold licence with no home mooring then presumably CRT would charge you the same as with a mooring on a CRT waterway.

If your home waters are on CRT waters, the extension (Gold) to use the Thames is very good value.

Conversely if your home waters are on the Thames, the Gold is poor value if you use the canals.

 

Both depend on how much time you spend on the other system.

My argument is based on spending 30 days in total on the canals - a 30 day explorer CRT licence is cheaper for me than a Gold.

A Gold for a CRT based boat buys you a lot more Thames days than t'other way around.

To my mind they should be roughly equivalent.

 

I'd love to be based on (say) the Oxford, but the car journey to a good marina somewhere on the Oxford for regular use is unpleasant. Being 1/4  of the cost doesn't compensate (even if our current mooring is more than excellent).

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3 hours ago, OldGoat said:

If your home waters are on CRT waters, the extension (Gold) to use the Thames is very good value.

Conversely if your home waters are on the Thames, the Gold is poor value if you use the canals.

 

Both depend on how much time you spend on the other system.

My argument is based on spending 30 days in total on the canals - a 30 day explorer CRT licence is cheaper for me than a Gold.

A Gold for a CRT based boat buys you a lot more Thames days than t'other way around.

To my mind they should be roughly equivalent.

 

I'd love to be based on (say) the Oxford, but the car journey to a good marina somewhere on the Oxford for regular use is unpleasant. Being 1/4  of the cost doesn't compensate (even if our current mooring is more than excellent).

So with boat based on CRT, I worked out in Jan that for 2 months on EA, half Anglian and half Thames, made it cheaper to get a Gold licence.  Of course Covid put paid to that, and all we have managed is a month on the Thames, so it cost me more than a visitor licence would have done.  I would have thought therefore that for someone on EA would they need to spend 2 months or more on CRT for it to be the best way to go, as that it the situation the other way round.

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