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Running engines when moored "out of hours" #2 - The CRT view.


Neil2

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17 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

The licence T&C's per se are not statutory, they contain some clauses that are stautory, and many that are not, as well as some that are contrary to stautory requirements.

I meant the 3 licence conditions in the 95 act. ( 4 including payment )

 

There are no other statutory conditions to obtain a licence.

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16 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Bye law 39:

 

39. No person shall commit any nuisance in or on any canal.

 

A bit vague, but running a noisy engine or generator in the vicinity of others, surely is committing a nuisance? Regardless of the time.

I don't think you can just take vague statements in legislation at face value, the meaning of "nuisance" may be dependent on other parts of the legislation. 

 

In any case CRT have a policy of referring all matters of noise pollution, antisocial behaviour, air pollution, littering, fly tipping etc to local councils they will not use bylaw 39. In fact they don't utilize any bylaws and never have, not one. 

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16 hours ago, Neil2 said:

As I understand it, all the regulations contained within the Boat Safety Scheme rely on the statutory provisions in the 1995 Act. 

 

So if CRT refuse a licence application on the grounds that a boat has not passed the BSE, it is acting entirely within its statutory powers.

 

I don't see a fundamental difference between imposing conditions on the grant of a licence via the BSS and imposing conditions through other reasonable conditions in the licence agreement.

 

The arguments restated above all took place a long time ago, I'm not sure they are totally relevant today.  The world has moved on and what might have been seen as draconian 25 years ago might be seen as entirely reasonable today.  The way society has accepted severe restrictions on smoking indoors is a good example.   

 

The point is, our issue of running engines at night might not have been a big deal in 1995, I don't think it was, but public tolerance of nuisance has changed, and the courts might very well take an entirely different view of what is unacceptable in 2021. 

 

 

 

Copied in error, please delete pls mods. 

Edited by waterworks
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On 19/09/2021 at 12:23, MtB said:

 

Yes, and linked to by Alan De E in post number.... oh. Once again we don't have them!! Is that a considered decision or a bug? 

 

My reading of that is a deliberate decision to make it impossible to tell when mods have deleted posts. I don't understand why that was considered necessary but I'm not a mod...

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13 hours ago, waterworks said:

I don't think you can just take vague statements in legislation at face value, the meaning of "nuisance" may be dependent on other parts of the legislation. 

 

In any case CRT have a policy of referring all matters of noise pollution, antisocial behaviour, air pollution, littering, fly tipping etc to local councils they will not use bylaw 39. In fact they don't utilize any bylaws and never have, not one. 

Trouble is  things like "satisfy the board" or "nuisance"  are vague statements, as are a lot of what makes up the Act,  however pretty it sounds. Mostly, the meaning depends on the point of view of the person enforcing it, which in law is usually the one with most money or property. In our case, this means the law is more or less what CRT say it is, as, generally speaking,  judges have agreed.

It took Nigel, who was an expert in all this,  quite a long time to win his classic case. I can't recall anyone else doing so, though there must have been one or two. All the noisy ones have been lost.

As far as referring all the other stuff to local councils, why pay for it yourself if it's someone else's responsibility? Real waste of scarce resources that would be.

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9 hours ago, nicknorman said:


You are correct, but it’s not really a defensible position - refusal to use extant bylaws, and instead invent extra-legal means to deal with problems.

My guess is that CRT do not want to publicise the bylaws because it contradicts their on going lie about the licence being a contract with conditions they can invent at will. 

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4 minutes ago, waterworks said:

My guess is that CRT do not want to publicise the bylaws because it contradicts their on going lie about the licence being a contract with conditions they can invent at will. 

 

So presumably when you apply for a license, you decline to tick the box agreeing to the T&Cs. What happens next? Do they not just reject your application?

 

Then what happens? How do you go about forcing them to fulfil their statutory obligation to issue a license? 

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15 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

So presumably when you apply for a license, you decline to tick the box agreeing to the T&Cs. What happens next? Do they not just reject your application?

 

Then what happens? How do you go about forcing them to fulfil their statutory obligation to issue a license? 

Judicial review. I seem to recall Onion Bargee had this problem, after having his licence revoked due to failing to CC adequately, he got a home mooring. But CRT didn’t want to give him a licence due to his history of CMing. In the end, he took it to court (or threatened to) and CRT issued his licence. Or something like that.

Edited by nicknorman
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26 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Judicial review. I seem to recall Onion Bargee had this problem, after having his licence revoked due to failing to CC adequately, he got a home mooring. But CRT didn’t want to give him a licence due to his history of CMing. In the end, he took it to court (or threatened to) and CRT issued his licence. Or something like that.

 

Well that's what I thought too. How long does a JR take to arrange? Is it practical to do one every three months as each short term license expires?

 

Mr waterworks writes as though he is familiar with what happens and seems to assert getting a license by just offering up the statutory BSS, insurance and mooring declaration is child's play, hence my question to him and what happens for him when he specifically does it.

 

Or are you asserting in a roundabout way that waterworks could be a doppelgänger of Onion Bargee's?  Heaven forbid Team Mod should ever be so outwitted! 

 

 

Edited by MtB
Clarify.
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20 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Well that's what I thought too. How long does a JR take to arrange? Is it practical to do one every three months as each short term license expires?

 

Mr waterworks writes as though he is familiar with what happens and seems to assert getting a license by just offering up the statutory BSS, insurance and mooring declaration is child's play, hence my question to him and what happens for him when he specifically does it.

 

Or are you asserting in a roundabout way that waterworks could be a doppelgänger of Onion Bargee's?  Heaven forbid Team Mod should ever be so outwitted! 

 


I suspect the threat of it should suffice. CRT don’t like having their practices exposed in court knowing they will lose, they would rather concede quietly and live to fight another day.

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16 minutes ago, nicknorman said:


I suspect the threat of it should suffice. CRT don’t like having their practices exposed in court knowing they will lose, they would rather concede quietly and live to fight another day.

 

If making the threat is easy and how to (in detail) became common knowledge, more people would do it. 

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5 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

If making the threat is easy and how to (in detail) became common knowledge, more people would do it. 

People would only need to do it if CRT declined to comply with the 1995 act. So far I don’t think they have much. They decline to issue licences to CCers because “the board isn’t satisfied…” but not for those with home moorings - as far as I know.

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14 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

People would only need to do it if CRT declined to comply with the 1995 act. So far I don’t think they have much. They decline to issue licences to CCers because “the board isn’t satisfied…” but not for those with home moorings - as far as I know.

 

Do they not decline to issue licenses to those who fail to 'tick the box' agreeing to the T&Cs then?

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1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

Do they not decline to issue licenses to those who fail to 'tick the box' agreeing to the T&Cs then?


I doubt it, they don’t want their scam exposed! Anyway i don’t think you have to. Our boat licence autorenews each year without me having to do anything. I certainly have never “ticked a box” since the new Ts&Cs were published.

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If you demand a licence they have refused for breach of their own invented licence conditions unfortunately CRT hold all the cards and they can tell you to go forth and multiply as long as they want with no come back unless you challenge them in court, the ombudsman won't adjudicate on legal matters so not only would you need lawyers but in-depth research into the history of the legislation back to the 1960's in order to build a case to prove the correct interpretation ( there probably is no legal proffesional that knows anything about waterways legislation ) if CRT fight the case you might be in to £50,000 costs and their lawyers Shoesmiths are ruthless and will do everything to bankrupt you before the case gets to court, stall for time, lose documents and try every dirty trick in the book. Plus the fact that the majority of boaters are cowards of authority that just accept what CRT tells them and do not want anything to do with challenging CRT and you won't get much support. 

 

If I won the lottery I'd do it but until then no thanks. 

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, waterworks said:

If you demand a licence they have refused for breach of their own invented licence conditions unfortunately CRT hold all the cards and they can tell you to go forth and multiply as long as they want with no come back unless you challenge them in court, the ombudsman won't adjudicate on legal matters so not only would you need lawyers but in-depth research into the history of the legislation back to the 1960's in order to build a case to prove the correct interpretation ( there probably is no legal proffesional that knows anything about waterways legislation ) if CRT fight the case you might be in to £50,000 costs and their lawyers Shoesmiths are ruthless and will do everything to bankrupt you before the case gets to court, stall for time, lose documents and try every dirty trick in the book. Plus the fact that the majority of boaters are cowards of authority that just accept what CRT tells them and do not want anything to do with challenging CRT and you won't get much support. 

 

If I won the lottery I'd do it but until then no thanks. 

 

CRT no longer works with Shoosmiths.

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43 minutes ago, Sir Nibble said:

I do wonder who is the "enemy ". Is the forum on the side of inconsiderate boaters blighting the lives of people around them and against any process to limit the right to be an R sole, or on the side of CaRT trying with limited powers to enforce civilised behaviour? 

It’s a “does the end justify the means?” question. Yes I do want CRT to keep inconsiderate boaters under control. But I want them to do it within the law. Once we want them to operate specifically outside the law, where does it stop? I suspect in any other field, you would expect a large QUANGO-type organisation to operate within the law and would be up in arms if it didn’t.
Is your opinion that CRT should do whatever necessary to keep inconsiderate boaters under control, regardless of the legality of it? Masked dead of night towpath gangs with baseball bats to scare the shit out of generator runners would perhaps be a good start.

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1 hour ago, Sir Nibble said:

I do wonder who is the "enemy ". Is the forum on the side of inconsiderate boaters blighting the lives of people around them and against any process to limit the right to be an R sole, or on the side of CaRT trying with limited powers to enforce civilised behaviour? 

 

Right. So abuse of process and abuse of the law is entirely acceptable as long as it's felt that those on the receiving end deserve it? Go forth.

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2 minutes ago, tehmarks said:

 

Right. So abuse of process and abuse of the law is entirely acceptable as long as it's felt that those on the receiving end deserve it? Go forth.


Given there is no legitimate process for stopping night time generators running, do the 99% just have to put up with it then? 

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3 minutes ago, MtB said:


Given there is no legitimate process for stopping night time generators running, do the 99% just have to put up with it then? 

There is legitimate process, under the bylaws. But CRT choose not to use it because it’s too much hassle.

Edited by nicknorman
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Just now, nicknorman said:

There is legitimate process, under the bylaws. But CRT choose not to use it.


which loops us back to the questions i asked upthread. Who enforces bylaws, and if it is CRT, is there any way to make CRT use and apply them? 
 

Nobody seems to know the answer. 

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1 hour ago, tehmarks said:

 

Right. So abuse of process and abuse of the law is entirely acceptable as long as it's felt that those on the receiving end deserve it? Go forth.

Nice of you to propose a solution but I don't think you have authority to declare abuse of the law "acceptable", nor to judge who does or does not "deserve it". 

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1 hour ago, tehmarks said:

 

Right. So abuse of process and abuse of the law is entirely acceptable as long as it's felt that those on the receiving end deserve it? Go forth.

This does seem to be the accepted position of most of the population, as well as of most of the organisations in a position of control, whether one likes it or not. Plenty of examples on here in other threads from the "just give the vandals a slap" brigade. 

Those who abuse the law are usually in a position to amend it so they aren't abusing it any more, which is what judges do when they lay down a marker for future cases. Laws are usually written badly enough so there's plenty of scope.

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