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Canal & River Trust seeks boaters' views on licence T&Cs


Ray T

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25 minutes ago, Mike Adams said:

If you are boating on the sea or abroad say in France, Holland or Germany you often have to pay to stay overnight but usually get something in return.

Coastal (UK) is typically £25-£50 per night for a pontoon mooring, but you do get the 'usual' facilities.

 

You can always anchor-up off a nice sandy beach and use the tender to get ashore, then there is no-charge.

 

(Sorry the camera lens must have been a bit 'misty' when the took the dog ashore)

 

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CAM00479.jpg

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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9 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Coastal (UK) is typically £25-£50 per night for a pontoon mooring, but you do get the 'usual' facilities.

 

That's why I stopped cruising around the coast. OK for a couple weeks a year and a few weekends. I was going to go around the UK before I sold my Nelson but the fuel and mooring costs would have made it a very expensive trip.

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Just now, Mike Adams said:

That's why I stopped cruising around the coast. OK for a couple weeks a year and a few weekends. I was going to go around the UK before I sold my Nelson but the fuel and mooring costs would have made it a very expensive trip.

That was our plan for this year but 'things happened' - maybe next year, or the next year, we may even take a couple of years doing it.

 

You cannot take it with you - there are no pockets in shrouds.

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I am not impressed by the standard of the consultation document. Just one small example (and their are many others) is the requirement of an insurance policy with an insurance company that is both authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

That is impossible. The FCA do not authorise and have no powers to do so. Authorisation is conducted by the Prudential Regulation Authority.

May seem unimportant but shows carelessness

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52 minutes ago, MartinC said:

I am not impressed by the standard of the consultation document. Just one small example (and their are many others) is the requirement of an insurance policy with an insurance company that is both authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

That is impossible. The FCA do not authorise and have no powers to do so. Authorisation is conducted by the Prudential Regulation Authority.

May seem unimportant but shows carelessness

An interesting point as we insure our boat with craftinsure who are underwritten by Zurich Insurance and they are regulated by the central bank of Ireland.

Having dug a bit further on the craftinsure web site they do mention being authorised by the FCA.

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6 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

An interesting point as we insure our boat with craftinsure who are underwritten by Zurich Insurance and they are regulated by the central bank of Ireland.

Having dug a bit further on the craftinsure web site they do mention being authorised by the FCA.

 

The FCA approval is only so they can do "pay monthly" credit schemes.  The PRA approval is what allows them to sell insurance in the UK.

 

A side effect of the proposed change might be that you wouldn't be allowed to pay for your boat insurance in one payment, you'd have to pay the extra to pay it in installments!

 

 

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16 hours ago, Mike Adams said:

If I was in charge we wouldn't be in this mess! I suppose there is always some collateral damage when you have to row back from an unsustainable position. I am sure you could work around it as not all sites would be 48hour or you could pop into a marina or use you tickets. If you are boating on the sea or abroad say in France, Holland or Germany you often have to pay to stay overnight but usually get something in return.

What mess?  As usual, I've covered hundreds of miles this year.  I haven't seen this so called mess that you seem so keen to clear up.  I think you're imagining it.  Even if there is a mess in specific, limited areas, there's absolutely zero evidence that it's being caused by boaters who are paying for a home mooring. 

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20 hours ago, Mike Adams said:

Here’s my solution to most of the issues raised in the consultation

 

Cruising away from your home mooring

 

1. Make most locations 48hr max mooring. This is done on the Wey and Basingstoke Canal for example. But give all boaters say a pack of 4 scratch off stickers allowing an extended stay of up to 14 days at any one place. Further tickets could be purchased say up to 6 more each year. I think this could be done without changing the act of Parliament.

 

2/3.    Insurance and Boat Safety False Declarations

 

This is just a resourcing issue and has always been a minor problem. Some people are never going to comply or will try to subvert the system. I can’t see that changing the terms and conditions are going to have any effect. They could always set up something similar to the Motor Vehicle insurance database and they have the BSS database already.

 

4. Boat dimensions

 

This is just a local problem unless someone can tell me otherwise. A couple of piles at the start of the Northern Oxford and new notices and an electronic warning system on Braunston and Blisworth should do the trick. Wide boats using that section could be given a transponder which could trigger signals at the tunnel. They do this sort of thing all the time in France.

 

5/6/7. Licence termination/Obligations and Refunds/Behaviour towards Trust Colleagues

 

I don’t have a problem with any of these changes.

 

 

 

 

 

Arent the short stay VMs also not legally enforceable as the law only refers to 14 days? People would ignore them (as they already sometimes do). Not to mention massive resistance from liveaboards and other users (i know when we were marina based holiday boaters we still often found it useful to be able to leave the boat on the towpath for a while, arent enough marina spaces in many areas)

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5 minutes ago, Dave123 said:

Arent the short stay VMs also not legally enforceable as the law only refers to 14 days?

 

Mooring for 14 days is legally specified for boats WITHOUT a home mooring (CCers)

For boats WITH a home mooring there is nothing in law to actually allow them to moor at all. BW / C&RT has granted permissive right for boats with a home mooring to moor for up to 14 days (or less etc etc)

 

From an old post of Nigel Moore

 

Over the latter part of the 20th century, longer temporary use of the towpath for mooring became tolerated on a pragmatic basis, with 14 days fixed upon as a rough guideline for reasons lost in obscurity (for all that BW came up with postulated origins during the Select Committee hearings on the 1990 Bill).

 

Obstruction remains on the statute books as an offence, updated even in the 1995 Act, and overstaying stated times on selected sections has been used with County Court approval to qualify the boat – being thereby regarded as an obstruction - for being moved under s.8(5) of the 1983 Act. Anything longer than an overnight stay, as I see it, is simply permissive – with the exception of boats without home moorings, for whom only, the right to 14 days (or more if circumstances dictate) is enshrined in law.

 

For boats with home moorings when cruising away from those, the 14 day limit would apply only as a permissive one based on a fair-play comparison with the ‘continuous cruisers’. It is simply, in other words, that CaRT would find difficulty in justifying the application of differing standards based only on the nature of the boat licence application.

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54 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Mooring for 14 days is legally specified for boats WITHOUT a home mooring (CCers)

For boats WITH a home mooring there is nothing in law to actually allow them to moor at all. BW / C&RT has granted permissive right for boats with a home mooring to moor for up to 14 days (or less etc etc)

So what is the disadvantage of declaring that you are a continuous cruiser and then having a  mooring in a marina anyway? Surely they can't stop you from mooring for more than 14 days in a marina. They allow CCers to take winter moorings which would seem to conflict with the rules as they would then have a home mooring.

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6 minutes ago, Mike Adams said:

 

So what is the disadvantage of declaring that you are a continuous cruiser and then having a  mooring in a marina anyway? Surely they can't stop you from mooring for more than 14 days in a marina. They allow CCers to take winter moorings which would seem to conflict with the rules as they would then have a home mooring.

The difference being that a CCer must move every 14 days to a new place, whilst a Non-CCer only needs to move every 14 days to a new place.

 

A Judge did comment that it is most unusual and not desirable to have  conditions where the same word means two different things.

 

In a CCers case a new "place" is in a different 'parish', country, several Km away, etc etc, whilst for a non-CCer a 'place' is actually defined as 'a boat sized shape' space so, in effect a non-ccer would be complying by moving one boat length (plus - say - 1 foot) and is in a new place.

 

A CCer cannot do 14 days at A, then 14 days at B, then return to do 14 days at A, whilst a non CCer can.

 

I'll again paste the comments of Judge Halbert :

 

However, neither the statutory regime in subsection 17(3) nor the guidelines can deal with this problem. A boat which has a home mooring is not required to be “bona fide” used for navigation throughout the period of the licence, but neither is it required to ever use its home mooring. The act requires that the mooring is available, it does not say it must be used. The guidelines also have this effect. The boat is still subject to the restriction that it must not stay in the same place for more than 14 days but there is nothing whatever to stop it being shuffled between two locations quite close together provided they are far enough apart to constitute different places. If those who are causing the overcrowding at popular spots have home moorings anywhere in the country the present regime cannot control their overuse of the popular spots. Such an owner could cruise to and fro along the Kennet & Avon canal near Bristol and the home mooring could be in Birmingham and totally unused.

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Mooring for 14 days is legally specified for boats WITHOUT a home mooring (CCers)

For boats WITH a home mooring there is nothing in law to actually allow them to moor at all. BW / C&RT has granted permissive right for boats with a home mooring to moor for up to 14 days (or less etc etc)

 

From an old post of Nigel Moore

 

Over the latter part of the 20th century, longer temporary use of the towpath for mooring became tolerated on a pragmatic basis, with 14 days fixed upon as a rough guideline for reasons lost in obscurity (for all that BW came up with postulated origins during the Select Committee hearings on the 1990 Bill).

 

Obstruction remains on the statute books as an offence, updated even in the 1995 Act, and overstaying stated times on selected sections has been used with County Court approval to qualify the boat – being thereby regarded as an obstruction - for being moved under s.8(5) of the 1983 Act. Anything longer than an overnight stay, as I see it, is simply permissive – with the exception of boats without home moorings, for whom only, the right to 14 days (or more if circumstances dictate) is enshrined in law.

 

For boats with home moorings when cruising away from those, the 14 day limit would apply only as a permissive one based on a fair-play comparison with the ‘continuous cruisers’. It is simply, in other words, that CaRT would find difficulty in justifying the application of differing standards based only on the nature of the boat licence application.

Any other approach wouldn't work.  If they told me I needed to give up my home mooring to be able to stay 14 days, I'd tell them I had and declare as a continuous cruiser.  They'd have a tricky job proving legally that I still had a home mooring.

27 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The difference being that a CCer must move every 14 days to a new place, whilst a Non-CCer only needs to move every 14 days to a new place.

 

 

Eh?  I'm struggling to see the difference between these two.

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1 minute ago, doratheexplorer said:

They'd have a tricky job proving legally that I still had a home mooring.

 

All marinas now have to inform C&RT of who is in their marina.

 

2 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

Eh?  I'm struggling to see the difference between these two.

Keep reading - the difference is several kilometres or 1 foot.

A judge struggled with it so don't feel bad !!!

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Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

 

All marinas now have to inform C&RT of who is in their marina.

 

Keep reading - the difference is several kilometres or 1 foot.

A judge struggled with it so don't feel bad !!!

Care to share the judge's comments which say that a place is one boat length for boaters who have a home mooring?

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Just now, doratheexplorer said:

Care to share the judge's comments which say that a place is one boat length for boaters who have a home mooring?

Only that it can be shown to be a different place - and that C&RT say (the 1995 Act) that 'place' is a place where a boat can be kept so it is a boat sized space.

If you have 2 boats parked on your drive each boat is in a different place.

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It would appear then that a CCer can stay 14 days on a 24hour mooring or anywhere, unless they are causing an obstruction, since the 24hr restriction is not enforceable by law against them yet a 'home moorer' has no rights because his right to moor is only permissive.

In effect the home moorer simply needs to move to a new spot when asked to do so or after 14 days, possibly on the same mooring site. CaRT can't enforce  this easily within the law on an individual as it could be seen to be discriminatory.

I said previously it was mess, What we need is Boris to explain it!

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When you have completed the survey you are directed to the CRT boating web page — where the photo is of Stoke Bruerne, but back to front.  Looking towards the top lock, the museum, the cottages, and the Spice of Bruerne are actually on the left not the right.

 

DB1C192E-19E4-45E3-8D5E-2E2028DDAA4D.jpeg

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I am sure it has been said in one of the previous posts but as CRT are powerless to act against so-called continuous cruisers mooring for months in the same spot and covering the footpath with all their worldly goods and rubbish, what is the point of them making yet more rules that only worry the rule-respecting good boaters.

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Aren't modern day laptops getting cleverer?

I was feeling slighted that C&RT had ignored me when it came to this latest seeking of boaters' views on licence T&Cs.

 

Then I discovered my pooter with great understanding had filed my invitation under "Junk Mail"

How does it know?

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On 01/10/2020 at 11:08, canalboat said:

I am sure it has been said in one of the previous posts but as CRT are powerless to act against so-called continuous cruisers mooring for months in the same spot and covering the footpath with all their worldly goods and rubbish, what is the point of them making yet more rules that only worry the rule-respecting good boaters.

As a relatively (these days anyway) rule respecting good boater, I can't say I've ever been worried about any daft rules CRt or BW before them impose. I didn't when I lived on a leisure mooring, either. In practice, I don't think the bulk of these changes will affect anyone who boats with a bit of consideration. And I still think the oddest changes are down to their seemingly endless hassle with young Dunkley, ex of this parish.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 04/10/2020 at 17:40, Arthur Marshall said:

And I still think the oddest changes are down to their seemingly endless hassle with young Dunkley, ex of this parish.

I agree , Perhaps we need a space on the online application where you can add a comment along the lines that ‘nothing in these terms and conditions shall take precedence over the relevant Acts of Parliament.’

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3 minutes ago, Tuscan said:

I agree , Perhaps we need a space on the online application where you can add a comment along the lines that ‘nothing in these terms and conditions shall take precedence over the relevant Acts of Parliament.’

I did on the comments on every question 

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On 29/09/2020 at 11:19, Jerra said:

I did ask you how you would solve what CRT see as a problem.   You haven't, is that because you can't offer any method to do this?  If it isn't because you have no answer please put it forward I am sure CRT would love to hear it.

"I would happily accept the condition.  It would after all only be reverting to what was the situation."   Hard luck on true CCers but again it would solve what CRt see as a problem.

 

 

I am not aware that this has ever been the case and would greatly appreciate proof.

 

Keith

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